Rachel renee2/27/2024 It was a really difficult time for all of us, but I think that’s why I write so well about the drama of being a dork because we lived through the horror years.” Although I tried to work it out with the administrators, I had to step in and put them into a different school. “Not only were they picked on, but eventually it got physical. “Both of my girls had a really hard time in school, but especially Nikki, who is now 24,” the author admits. Not only do this charming, sassy stories teach girls to speak up and speak out, the characters are encouraged to figure out the world by jotting down their thoughts, dreams, and desires in the pages of their journals. Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.A Note from Hope Katz Gibbs, publisher, Inkandescent Women magazine - You probably know her books, even if you don’t know Rachel Renee Russell, the New York Times bestselling author who has sold millions of copies of her teenage girl power series, The Dork Diaries. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. Gradually-too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic-it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure.Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories-but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar ( Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).ĭriven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. Nikki’s ultimate realization that she needs to be true to herself comes across as genuine rather than contrived, however, so despite its modern trappings, Nikki’s journey of self-discovery will appeal to preadolescent readers struggling to find their places in the world. An abundance of up-to-the-minute pop-cultural references threatens to date this novel quickly. The comical sketches, executed à la Diary of a Wimpy Kid, add an element of self-deprecating humor to the tale. Russell’s narrative deftly captures the winsome vulnerability of a girl perched on the cusp of teenhood. Nikki chronicles all of her new-girl angst and trepidations as well as her fledgling crush in her diary. At Westchester Country Day, Nikki encounters über-snobbish MacKenzie, the archetypal mean girl and her pack of “CCP”-Nikki’s acronym for the cute, cool and popular-friends. When her father barters enrollment in a prestigious private school in exchange for his bug-extermination services, Nikki suddenly finds her life in turmoil.
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