Read Dork Diaries 12 – Tales from a Not-So-Secret Crush Catastrophe free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Rachel Renee Russell's Tales from a Not-So-Secret Crush Catastrophe is a giggly, gushing friendship story for 10 year olds about a girl who's just come down with a very bad case of crush-itis.
It's the twelfth Dork Diaries book, and it's nearly the end of the school year. Nikki Maxwell's puppy Daisy has wrecked the house. Nikki is covered head to toe in muddy paw prints. And that's exactly when Brandon walks past.
He offers to train Daisy. Twice a week, in Nikki's back garden. Then he tells her he's looking forward to hanging out with HER, not the dog. SQUEEEE!
After that, everything piles up at once. Nikki gets made a student ambassador for a visitor from another school she's only met by email. Her band has a summer tour to plan. And she's won a place on an art trip to Paris that lands right in the middle of it.
As for the exchange student she's been chatting to so happily? Let's just say Nikki got one small detail VERY wrong. (Brandon is not thrilled when the visitor takes his seat in biology.)
Because it's her diary, you get every swoop and wobble. One minute she's so happy she could "vomit sunshine". The next she wants to climb into the postbox and stay there. It's very silly and very honest, which is a lovely mix.
Family life is as chaotic as ever. Little sister Brianna invents a board game whose real point is eating Nikki's secret sweet stash. Dad wants help getting his bug extermination business onto "Bookface". And MacKenzie, the meanest girl at school, is back, sashaying about with four layers of lip gloss.
If your reader has ever had a crush and been completely mortified by it, they'll recognise all of this (and probably giggle into their pillow). It's full of shouty capitals and SQUEEEs, so it zips along.
The story carries straight on into the summer holidays, so if they're hooked, Tales from a Not-So-Happy Birthday is the next one. Nikki's planning a birthday party, and it's every bit as chaotic as you'd hope.
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