Dork Diaries – How to Dork Your Diary

Rachel Renee Russell's Dork Diaries How to Dork Your Diary is a half-story, half-activity book for 10 year olds about the day Nikki Maxwell loses her diary.

What happens

Nikki wakes up at 6.05 in the morning sure it was all a nightmare. Then she realises she's been writing in her little sister Brianna's old doodle book. Her diary really is gone. Somewhere at school.

And that's a BIG problem. Her diary is full of her most private, most embarrassing thoughts. What if Jessica, who helps in the school office, finds it first and hands it to MacKenzie Hollister, the girl who can't stand her?

So the whole book is one long, panicky school day. Nikki goes through the lost property box (a mouldy sandwich, somebody's retainer, a matted hair extension). She suspects Chloe, then Zoey, then feels awful for suspecting them. By lunchtime the three of them are climbing into the big bins behind the cafeteria. Chloe comes out with a floppy hat, a magazine and a very smelly teddy bear. Still no diary.

In between each bit of the story, Nikki writes a Note to Self and a diary tip. There's a quiz to find your diary personality. There are prompts to write about the best and worst things that have ever happened to you, to invent secret codes, to plan a comic strip and to throw yourself a pretend party.

So it's not really a novel. Think of it as a Dork Diaries book with a fill-in journal woven through it. The tips ask your reader to write and draw their own answers, so it's probably best with a notebook and some pens close by.

It's also quite reassuring. Nikki says writing about a bad day can make you feel better, and that keeping a diary is a grown-up thing to do, not a silly one. For a child who likes scribbling their thoughts down, that's a lovely message.

The whole gang turns up, from Brandon to Brianna's hand puppet Miss Penelope, so it's much more fun if your reader already knows the main books. Who hasn't panicked about losing something that private?

What to read next

If they love Nikki's scribbly, capital-letters style, the same author also writes about Max Crumbly. In Locker Hero, Max has just started at a new middle school, and the school bully keeps stuffing him into his own locker.