Book Review: Nikki and Deja: Wedding Drama

Nikki and Deja: Wedding Drama by Karen English

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

Ms. Shelby is getting married! As the girls in Nikki and Deja’s class compete over who can plan the best imaginary wedding for their teacher, Nikki excitedly throws herself into preparations for the real thing. But Deja is not so enthusiastic. Her Auntie Dee has been temporarily laid off from her job, and Deja is worried. What will happen now that she can no longer afford a new dress and special hairdo? Will Nikki leave her best friend behind while she shops and primps? Will Deja be able to get over her jealousy and enjoy the celebration anyway?

This is the fifth book in the Nikki and Deja series but it could easily stand alone. I haven’t read any of the previous books and I didn’t feel like I missed anything. The intended audience for this book is ages 6 to 9 or grades 1 to 4. This was definitely a feminine story, all about the excitement of planning a wedding. As much as I hate to classify things by gender, I don’t think this book will appeal to most boys (nor is it meant to.) This book did a good job of capturing how competitive and snotty little girls can be with each other and showing how it makes the girls on the receiving end of the snottiness feel bad.

I chose this book because it sounded like a cute story and there are girls of color on the cover. I think I’ve mentioned before, I like to acquire books for our home library that feature children of different colors and ethnicities, especially since as a foster parent I often have children of color living in my home and it makes them feel more comfortable here to have books that feature kids that look like them. I liked that even though this book had several characters that were people of color, race was not the focus of this book. Not every book with characters of color needs to be about racial issues – people of color do live ordinary lives just like white people.

I did think that the moral may have been a little too subtle for a little kid to grasp. This would be a good book to read with your child and discuss afterwards to make sure that she gets the intended message. Overall, this was a cute little story about friendship.

Buy this book at:
Amazon Kindle Store

(I received this book courtesy of the Amazon Vine program.)