Many fans have been waiting to see if Margaret Wild, multiple award winning author of picture books, can make the transition to Young Adult writing.  My opinion is Yes! 

Jinx is about a teenager with amazing bad luck.  She internalises the awful things that have happened around her and renames herself Jinx.  Throughout the book we see her change as she becomes more detached and cynical.  The temptation for other authors may have been to leave Jinx and the reader wallowing in despondency, but thankfully Wild does not do this, and we are left with a very hopeful and open-ended conclusion.  

One of Wild’s greatest strengths as an author is her skill with words.  Within the pages of her 30 something picture books are some of the most memorable and poetic lines ever written for children.  I was really pleased to see this characteristic appear again and again throughout the book.  Told in free-verse each page of Jinx is a different snatch of character or situation.  I had to concentrate quite hard in the opening pages of the book, as Wild established the plot and main characters, but I was surprised at how quickly Wild was able to create such different voices; for instance,  the poem with shame is told in the third person from the perspective of Jinx’s mother …

“She encourages her children
to respect
other people’s privacy,
so it is with shame
she leafs through
her daughter’s diary. 

She tells herself
this is necessary
she doesn’t know what’s going on
in Jen’s head
this is something she has to do
so she can help. 

All she finds is trivia
and one sentence:
‘I hate my mother!’
She feels as if she has been bitten
in the heart.

Shuts the diary,
Tells herself grimly,
‘Serves me right.’”

While the next poem JEN >>>two  diaries lets us in to Jinx’s mind through her first person telling … 

“My mother doesn’t know
I have two diaries:
one for sneaky snoopers,
one for me.”

But then I realised that I shouldn’t be surprised by Wild’s ability to develop such different characters – after all – in picture books Wild usually only has a quarter of the pages to play with.  For a book of 215 pages much ground is covered.  This is my only criticism of Jinx.  There are many issues tackled: disability, youth suicide, drug and alcohol dependency, divorce, and mental illness, but somehow Wild manages to walk the fine line between trivialising issues and depressing her readers. 

Highly recommended, especially for those Young Adults who don’t like reading.

Review by Sarah Mayor Cox

© 2001 Sarah Mayor Cox