Tracy Beaker Tracy Beaker Tracy Beaker is the lead character in the "Tracy Beaker" franchise. After first appearing as the main character in Jacqueline Wilson's 1991 book "The Story of Tracy Beaker", she appeared in the popular children's television drama of the same name, portrayed by Dani Harmer, and its sequel series "Tracy Beaker Returns", as well as numerous spin-offs, Jacqueline Wilson books, a play and a video game. In her first appearances in the "Tracy Beaker" books and in the television series "The Story of Tracy Beaker", Tracy lives in care at a care home referred to as "The Dumping Ground".
Helen Cresswell Tracy Beaker, resident of The Dumping Ground." (Wilson introduced Beaker in 1991 and "The Story of Tracy Beaker" on television ran from 2002 to 2006.) Daughter Caroline believed that "Winter of the Birds" (1976) had been her mother's own favourite work. Cresswell once explained, "I write a title, then set out to find where that particular road will take me ...", and Caroline recalled, "Mum never plotted her books, she just wrote." In 1991 the BBC aired a six-part TV series, "Five Children And It", using Cresswell's script adaptation of the 1902 classic by E. Nesbit. Next year Cresswell's print