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Dork Diaries # 5: Tales from a Not-So-Smart Miss Know-It-All

Rachel Renee Russell

What's The Story?

In the fifth Dork Diaries book, Nikki Maxwell joins the school newspaper to compete with mean girl MacKenzie’s gossip column. She unexpectedly becomes the advice columnist “Miss Know-It-All” and enjoys helping her classmates—until her inbox is flooded with letters, and she starts feeling overwhelmed by all the pleas for advice!

The Series: Dive into the hilarious and heartwarming world of Nikki Maxwell as she navigates the chaos of a new school, deals with a mean girl nemesis, and tries to impress her new crush—all while documenting every awkward moment in her trusty diary. Dork Diaries is a laugh-out-loud series perfect for kids and teens who love relatable characters and funny situations. Parents will appreciate the positive messages about resilience, friendship, and self-acceptance. According to the School Library Journal, Nikki, a self-professed dork and aspiring artist, faces the challenges of starting at a new private middle school, dealing with the queen of mean girls, MacKenzie, and hiding the fact that she is attending on a scholarship because her father is the school's exterminator. Horn Book Magazine describes the series as delivering fluffy sitcom-style humor for tweens, with handwriting-like font, humorous manga-like doodles, and comic sketches adding authenticity to Nikki's diary format. Kirkus Reviews highlights Nikki's journey of self-discovery as she deals with her new-girl angst, exaggeratedly mean MacKenzie, and her fledgling crush, all while emphasizing the importance of being true to oneself. Although some reviews are mixed, with Common Sense Media noting it as "thick with materialism, thin on plot," the series remains highly rated with 4.8/5 on Amazon, 4.11/5 on GoodReads, and 4.3 on Google, making it a delightful read for a range of tweens. Winner of the Kids Choice Books Awards, 2010. 

Female lead character

Genres: Realistic Fiction, Humor

Themes: Friendship, School Life, Overcoming Challenges, Coming of Age

Recommended Grades: Grades 3-6

About the Author

About the Author

Rachel Renée Russell is the #1New York Timesbestselling author of Dork Diaries, an international blockbuster series chronicling the life and misadventures of middle school students, Nikki Maxwell and her best friends Chloe and Zoey. With humor and wit, Rachel’s books encourage tweens to embrace their individuality and always let their inner dork shine through. The Dork Diaries series has been translated into forty-two languages worldwide and its characters are as diverse as the millions of tweens who read the books. With more than fifty-five million books in print, the series has garnered such honors as two Kids’ Book Choice Awards, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Children, the Milner Award for Children’s Literature, and a Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Book of the Year nomination. Rachel is also the author of a secondNew York Timesbestselling series, The Misadventures of Max Crumbly, which received a Kids’ Book Choice Award. Her daughter, Nikki Russell, is the illustrator for both book series. The mother-daughter team has released nineteen consecutiveNew York Timesbestsellers.
Hardcover
$4.50 USD $14.99

Genre:

  • Realistic Fiction
  • Humor

Diverse Voices:

Curricular Connection:

  • English Language Arts

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