Last week, Rachel Renee Russell won the Children's Choice Book Award in the fifth-sixth grade category for her debut novel, Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life (S&S/Aladdin, $12.99 paper-over-board, 9781416980063/1416980067, 290 pp., ages 10-up). The award is especially meaningful because young people themselves determine the winners. So how did Russell, a bankruptcy lawyer by day, become a novelist beloved by middle-grade readers? It's a story as compelling as any fairy tale.
In April 2008, Russell entered the annual Fire and Ice competition. She took second place for a 30-page early incarnation of Dork Diaries called "So NOT My Fairy Godmother!: A Diary," which, not surprisingly, featured a fairy godmother. Russell sent the story to Dan Lazar at Writers House who thought the heroine was a "funny, compelling character," but suggested that Russell cut the fairy godmother. In three weeks, Russell had 70 pages written: "I axed the fairy, and kept Nikki," she said. By June, the project had been sold to S&S as a two-book contract, and Russell wrote another 210 pages by November 2008. The book was published in June 2009 and made the New York Times bestseller list within two weeks of its release.
One could call it a Cinderella story: by her own admission, Russell identifies with her heroine, 14-year-old Nikki Maxwell, a newcomer to Westchester Country Day Middle School who's hated by the queen of the CCP ("Cute, Cool & Popular") crowd, MacKenzie Hollister. "I wasn't that popular, but by senior year, the unpopular kids liked me, and there were more of them than popular kids, so they elected me president of the senior class," recalled Russell. Nikki likewise finds her niche, with fellow library shelving assistants Zoey and Chloe--and even "supercute hunk" Brandon.
A self-trained artist, Russell said she tends to write Nikki's story vignettes first and then add the artwork, though occasionally the art comes first. Russell said she learned a great deal from the process on book one, much of it having to do with pacing the artwork and the text. She moved from three square-panel series in the artwork to either three wide-panel sequences (that extend the full width of a page) or four square-panel sections, so that the artwork fell on the page in a predictable way. She also began to gauge the length of the lines of text so that the text breaks and artwork fell on the page or spread in a flow that was optimal to the story's pacing and didn't step on the laughs.
Next month, S&S will publish Dork Diaries #2: Tales from a Not-So-Popular Party Girl (S&S/Aladdin, $12.99 paper-over-board, 9781416980087/1416980083), in which Nikki accepts Brandon's invitation to be his lab partner but overhears nemesis MacKenzie boast that Brandon is taking her to the Halloween Dance. The third book, due to be released in June 2011, will feature a talent show with a nod to American Idol and Glee, and Russell has a fourth book under contract. So, fringe crowd, take heart in Russell's message: "Every dork has her day."--Jennifer M. Brown