Dork Diaries 11 – Tales from a Not-So-Friendly Frenemy

Rachel Renee Russell's Tales from a Not-So-Friendly Frenemy is a Dork Diaries story for 10 year olds about five days at the very last school Nikki Maxwell wants to go to.

What happens

It's Student Exchange Week. Every eighth grader has to spend five days at another school or make up the credit at summer school. Chloe, Zoey and Brandon all get sent to South Ridge together. Nikki gets North Hampton Hills.

That's where MacKenzie Hollister goes now. Could her luck be any worse?

Then her French teacher gives her an A+ for a project on the Louvre. There's a trip to Paris for students interested in art history, and it's run by North Hampton Hills! Suddenly Nikki's dreaded week is her big chance.

NHH turns out to look more like Hogwarts crossed with a posh hotel. There's a food court instead of a cafeteria. The girl who takes Nikki under her wing takes a selfie every ten minutes and treats her like a personal assistant. So is MacKenzie still the biggest problem in the building? Nikki isn't so sure.

This one sits well into the series. Nikki refers back to lots of earlier trouble with MacKenzie (a stolen diary, a hacked advice column), so it helps to have read a few before. The book still keeps a new reader up to speed.

The fun is in Nikki's voice. She has a meltdown in the girls' toilets, then tells you she handled it in a very calm and mature manner. Her new puppy Daisy won't let her sleep. Her little sister Brianna's chocolate pudding is so bad the whole Scout troop has to bury it in the woods (Poison Control got involved).

The Dork Diaries crowd are in eighth grade, so it feels older than you might expect from the age. There are crushes and texting under the desk, and Nikki "throws up in her mouth" more times than anyone needs. And her new NHH friend's handy guide to the teachers includes copying test answers and texting at the back of history.

If your reader is already hooked on Nikki, none of that will be a surprise. If they're new to her, the first diary is the natural place to start.

What to read next

Brandon's best friend goes to South Ridge, and he has his own series by the same author. If they want to meet him, Locker Hero is where Max Crumbly's journal starts, and it opens with Max stuck inside his school locker.