The Name Game!

Daphne's Diary of Daily Disasters #1

by Marissa Moss

Daphne has never (ever) loved her name, but it is her name and she can’t do much to change it. So when the first day of fourth grade comes, not only does Daphne get her pre-braces retainer but also the new teacher can’t seem to remember her name. It’s not Duffy or Daffy or Doffy. It’s Daphne. Well anyway what’s in a name? A lot, just ask Daphne.

80 pages, Paperback

First published July 12, 2011

About the author

Marissa Moss has written more than seventy books, from picture books to middle-grade and young adult novels. Best known for the Amelia's Notebook series, her books are popular with teachers and children alike. Her picture book Barbed Wire Baseball won the California Book Award gold medal. Moss is also the founder of Creston Books, an independent children's publishing house.

Reviews

[Savannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Daphne is SO SO funny my lil sis name is Daphne so it is a really good book ( for me if not you)

[Chloe Rudasill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when I was little and I don’t remember what I thought of it but I’m pretty sure I liked it haha.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

such a quick read.

[Remy]

the funniest thing is that i myself did not realise Daphne was not pronounced "Daffeen" before this

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review of books 1 and 2 in the Daphne's Diary of Daily Disasters series.

Marissa Moss's newest series, Daphne's Diary of Daily Disasters, is a spin-off of her long-running Amelia's Notebook series. Fourth-grader Daphne Davis is Amelia's cousin, and on the pink pages of her slim little notebooks she agonizes over the embarrassments and trials of her life. In The Name Game, she desperately tries to recover from her teacher's mispronunciation of her name as Daffy, which leads to some cruel retaliation involving the teacher's own name. In The Vampire Dare, she dresses as a vampire for Halloween, which she thinks will impress her classmates but actually leads them to ostracize her for having cooties.

Sometimes I feel like Marissa Moss's characters sound too much like adults mimicking children, but between Daphne and Amelia, Daphne is the more realistic and the more believable character. While the stories are solid in both books, and recount difficulties faced by many elementary school girls, I think my favorite sections were the back portions of Daphne's diary notebooks, in which she illustrates a variety of disasters and funny moments from her day to day life. I especially love the list in The Name Game of dog names people should definitely not give to their children. I also enjoyed the final page of The Vampire Dare which asks whether mud, shark-infested waters, a bottomless pit, or overflowing toilet ooze, would be the worst thing to fall into.

Daphne's obsession with disaster is somewhat pessimistic, and if this grows into a larger series, I do wonder whether that concept will start to grow stale. For now, though, these books are excellent survival guides for girls dealing with peer issues and teasing for the first time. They're quick reads, which will appear to fans of graphic novels, and Daphne would make an excellent female counterpart to a character like Alvin Ho, who is constantly facing his own disasters.

While these books are not as colorful or as detailed as the Amelia's notebook books, Daphne is still the kind of character girls will want to know, and this series will easily find a place among series such as The Popularity Papers and Dork Diaries.

[Tanya · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not keen on this whiny book. It is a unique presentation, but the main character is snide and whiny. I do not want to finish this book and have whisked it away halfway through. I guess that the authors of these whiny girl books are trying to get the girls this age (9 and 4th grade in this case) to relate and then hand out a lesson. But halfway in there is only complaints, snipe-y remarks about others, and no lesson other than life stinks and it is great to complain about it. In my home, we try to teach love, kindness, and optimism. We try to address the feelings that pull us down, like jealousy and anger, by finding the appropriate outlets for them, and then finding ways to feel better about those feelings. It seems to me these middle-grade girl books are too often just mean.

[Alison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I used to love the Amelia's notebook series when I was little. This is the first book I've read by Marissa Moss since I was like 10 and I wasn't that thrilled. I actually thought it promoted teasing as Daphne's dad's way of getting back at the teacher for messing up her name was to make fun of her name. I thought it had a horrible message and the last 20 pages or so were just random doodles not tied in with the storyline at all. I wasn't happy with it and I wouldn't recommend this series.

[Panda Bear · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book was terrible. It was extremely boring and a complete waste of my time. I hated how the author didn't use detail and dragged on and on about one stupid thing. The Amelia books are wayyyyyy better. I don't know why I even kept reading it. (Sorry Marissa Moss.)