Dork Diaries 3 – Tales from a Not-So-Talented Pop Star

Rachel Renee Russell's Dork Diaries Tales from a Not-So-Talented Pop Star is a laugh-out-loud diary for 10 year olds about a talent show, a mean girl and one very embarrassing video.

What happens

Nikki Maxwell writes EVERYTHING down. The Halloween dance with her crush, Brandon, was the best night of her life. Then she's left minding her little sister Brianna at the shopping centre, and ends up on stage at Queasy Cheesy, a kids' pizza place with a giant singing rat.

And guess who walks in with her phone out? MacKenzie Hollister, the meanest girl at Westchester Country Day. The video goes online that same weekend.

Now the school's holding a talent show, judged by a TV producer, with an audition for his show as first prize. Nikki, Chloe and Zoey want to enter together. MacKenzie wants to win so badly she's trying to poach Nikki's best friends for her own dance group (and she's got that video to hold over Nikki).

It really does feel like reading someone's actual diary. Nikki's in CAPITALS one minute and screaming into her pillow the next. She comes up with the perfect comeback and then admits she "just said that inside my head". Who hasn't done that?

Her family are a riot too. Brianna tells everyone she's buying a real baby unicorn from the grocery store. Dad takes them out in a three-dollar canoe with no paddles!

There's a secret underneath it all. Nikki's only at the posh school on a scholarship that came with her dad's bug extermination contract, and she'd be mortified if anyone found out. So when the school gets a bug problem, you can imagine the panic.

This isn't the first book about Nikki. It picks up the day after the Halloween dance and mentions things that happened before, so it's easier if your reader has met her already.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Worth knowing, too, that Nikki's crowd are older than your reader (Zoey gets described as fourteen). It's full of crushes, lip gloss and who's popular. There's a joke where Nikki tries to "drown" herself in a bowl of cereal out of embarrassment. It's all played for laughs, but if crushes and mean-girl stuff aren't on your reader's radar yet, it might be one to save.

If your reader is into school drama, though, they'll gobble it up.

What to read next

If they haven't met Nikki yet, go back to the first Dork Diaries book, where she's brand new at Westchester Country Day and desperate for a phone that won't embarrass her.