The Secret Diary of Katie Dinkerhoff

Embarrassed by her parents, who run a ballroom dance studio, and with only clinging, nerdy Irma for a friend, Katie, 14, fills her diary with events she wishes would happen to her. Finally she decides to make those events real, and, for starters, decides to enter the Romantic Couples Contest advertised in a paperback romance. Finding the other half of her couple is no small order, and, as it turns out, Katie has missed the contest's deadline anyway. However, she does secure the desired boyfriend by the end, as well as forge a true friendship with Irma, come to better terms with her parents, and even have another dreama trip to New York Citycome true. This is a pleasant, sometimes humorous, but ultimately facile story about the power of positive thinking. Young teens will identity with Katie's worries about parents, popularity and boys; but most of the characters are one-dimensional, and the ending is overly rosy and pat. Ages 11-13. (October)