Dork Diaries 5: Tales from a Not-So-Smart Miss Know-It-All
The Dork Diaries series continues with this installment, in which diarist Nikki takes action when her arch nemesis, the bratty Mackenzie Hollister, gets in her face several times too many. Encouraged by her BFFs, Nikki joins the school newspaper staff and carries out—with great flourish—the assignment to be its secret advice columnist. Russell continues to get a nuanced story across in the words of Nikki’s diary, while the illustrations lend even more substance to Nikki’s character. An easy place to enter—or continue—a sweet series featuring credible, although not traumatic, middle-school angst. Grades 4-6. --Francisca Goldsmith