#kellie's diary

[opinionated-cheapskate]

Kellie’s Diary #1

By Thomas Jenner. Available here.

I’ll try to continue nightly posts through the end of the week, then I’ll have to come up with a new schedule, because I now have to actually leave my house and be productive most days. A tragedy.

Kellie’s Diary is exactly that. It’s the diary of a 3rd grader named Kellie. There are actually two ways to read this story. It’s presented first as her handwritten pages, then in plain type if the pages are too difficult to read. I read the plain-type version.

Kellie was away at her grandparents’ for a while, and only just came home. Everything is fine at first. Then kids start getting sick, and even teachers. Once they get sick, they don’t come back to school.

Kellie ends up trapped in the bathroom of her school. A bunch of creepy people came in, and she ran away. She was stuck there overnight. Eventually she works up the courage to run to the cafeteria and get more food, since she only had her lunch in her bag. She stays in the school a little longer before running to a tree she always climbs.

She almost gets bitten as she runs to the tree. She doesn’t know what kind of monsters they are. She makes her way slowly back to her home. She stops by a friend’s house for a little while, but the friend’s mom chases her and trips down the stairs. Kellie borrows some food from them too.

There’s no one home when she gets there. She’s still relieved to be home, even if she’s still really worried. The next book picks up from there.

I like the idea of seeing the zombie apocalypse through a kid’s perspective. The misspellings and such add a little more realism to it. There are some things that make her seem a little younger than she is, but that happens.

Unfortunately, I feel like the handwritten version (after a quick skimming) was not really used to its fullest potential. Kids doodle in the margins, and leave little side comments, and get peanut butter and tears and whatever else on the pages. But the handwritten version was exactly the same, with a different font, essentially. Wasted potential.

~

Page count: 34

Objective quality: 3/5

Personal enjoyment: 3/5

Amazon review

[mollylooby]

Kellie's Diary - Thomas Jenner and Angeline Perkins

A Spoiler Free Bit About The Book Nine-year-old Kellie finds herself in a world of monsters. She must be brave in order to find home where she's hoping Mum and Dad will be waiting for her. My Review I didn't quite know what to expect with this to be honest. I was questioning how much of the world could pass through a nine-year-old's head. But the result was creepy and intense. The entire thing is written in diary entries which are short and easy to read. However, I have some serious issues with the diary form and they were highlighted by the young protagonist throughout. Diaries tend to lack dialouge and Kellie's Diary had no dialouge whatsoever. I love dialouge and the absence of it stood out so much. I understand Kellie is alone for the majority of the story but even so, I was craving some sort of conversation. Also, because of the lack of dialouge and the fact that Kellie was alone for pretty much the whole story, there are almost no secondary characters. The few people we hear about we don't know. I needed some other characters to add another dimension. I guess if Kellie had any adults around her she'd be safe and they'd be no story to tell but even so. The diary also led to a lot of telling and not showing. Kellie would say things like "I was so scared" which makes me feel nothing as a reader. I couldn't feel her fear at all as it wasn't described. But a nine-year-old wouldn't know how to describe it so I lost out on feeling much of anything. A lot of tension is lost because we know she's all right because she's writing the entry. This made the pace seem very casual throughout. We miss all the action and therefore the danger never truly hits us. The whole thing was short and I read it in one sitting feeling like I'd missed something. There didn't feel like much of a plot and I disliked the choice of form. I'm sure if Kellie's Diary was written in something other than the diary form, it would've been much more gripping. Evaluation Overall 5/10 Would I recommend it? No. The idea was creepy but the execution wasn't right. Would I look up the author? No. Kellie's Diary was creepy at first but the danger was too far removed for my liking.

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