About 400 excited girls queued for up to four hours outside a Dublin bookshop yesterday to have a novel about marital break-up signed by their favourite author.
There are very few authors whose popularity requires that their book signings are ticketed, according to Waterstones Ireland. David Beckham is one, Jacqueline Wilson is another.
"The tickets were free, but we had to have them to keep the numbers any way reasonable. If we didn't, Jacqueline would never get away," a spokeswoman for Waterstones said.
Wilson tackles serious social issues such as alcoholism, cancer, single-parent families and in her latest book, Clean Break, a parental split."I like her because her characters are very real," said Cara Hennessy (11), who had queued with her cousin Emma Murphy (10) since 1.30pm. Sheila Naughton (10) said she spoke to Wilson about her novel Bad Girls, which was adapted for stage and played in the Helix last year. Her sister, Alice (7), also got a word in. "I told her she was good and I like the way she talks." Anna Fenn (12) flew up from Cork just to meet Wilson.
The girls were as interested in Wilson, who last week sold her 20 millionth book, as they were in her books and passed time trading facts such as "she has over 70 rings", "she swims 60 lengths every day" and "every time she writes a book she buys a new piece of jewellery".
