Dork Diaries - Tales of a Not-So-Popular Popstar

My daughters LOVE these books.  When the new one was recently released they begged me to buy it on the release day - lucky for them Costco had it.  Since they love them so much I figured I should I should read one and see what all the excitement was about. Also, technically my daughters are on the young side to read these books (9 and 7 years old) and I when I heard them talking about the main characters crush I figured I should see how far things went with this crush.  I asked them which one was their favorite and they agreed on this one.

Anyway, very quick read since it is written as a diary and includes lots of pictures.  Overall it was a lot of fun.  The main character - self proclaimed dork is Nikki.  She attends a private middle school in Westchester New York.  Her family is not well off, she attends the school because she got a scholarship - her Dad is the exterminator for the school.  She is terrified that anyone at the school will find out her secret including her two BFFs - Chloe and Zoey.  The main mean girl is Mackenzie who does anything and everything she can to humiliate Nikki.  To her credit Nikki does stand up for herself sometimes and fires some zingers right back at Mackenzie.  

There is a talent show happening at the school and the main prize is a scholarship to the school.  Nikki believes that she lost her scholarship due to a letter she got from the school canceling her Dad's contract and revoking her scholarship. She's terrified to tell her parents so is determined to win the scholarship instead.  After a few setbacks due to Mackenzie she gets a band together and they come up with a song that they are proud of.  

I can see why my daughters like these books. Aside from my kids using a few too many OMGs in their regular vocabulary, there was nothing inappropriate for them to read.  Also while Nikki is a self-proclaimed dork it's not something she's ashamed of.  She is who she is.  She knows she'll never be one of the CCPs (cute and cool people) but doesn't really seem to mind, which is a nice change.  So many other books for this age focus on wanting to/needing to be popular (or at least they did when I was in middle school - when I was admittedly a dorky bookworm who wished I was more popular)