Dumbness is a Dish Best Served Cold (Dear Dumb Diary: Deluxe)

Dumbness is a Dish Best Served Cold (Dear Dumb Diary: Deluxe)
Author(s)
Publisher
Age Range
8+
Release Date
June 28, 2016
ISBN
9780545932288
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Life at Mackerel Middle School is as dumb as ever -- but Jamie Kelly may have finally found the key to fame, fortune, and fabulousness. Together with Isabella and Angeline, she's come up with a moneymaking idea, and it has to do with food. Everyone likes food! They're going to be rich!

The only problem? They have to come up with something that people actually want to eat.

Jamie has some sophisticated thoughts on food, like, "She was manipulating us like dough. Like the sweet, delicious dough that we are. And she was baking us into the type of delicious cookies you can only get from dough like us. And she was putting sprinkles of us on top of us, and -- forget it. I'm hungry. I want some cookies."

This is sure to go well.

Life at Mackerel Middle School is as dumb as ever -- but Jamie Kelly may have finally found the key to fame, fortune, and fabulousness. Together with Isabella and Angeline, she's come up with a moneymaking idea, and it has to do with food. Everyone likes food! They're going to be rich!

The only problem? They have to come up with something that people actually want to eat.

Jamie has some sophisticated thoughts on food, like, "She was manipulating us like dough. Like the sweet, delicious dough that we are. And she was baking us into the type of delicious cookies you can only get from dough like us. And she was putting sprinkles of us on top of us, and -- forget it. I'm hungry. I want some cookies."

This is sure to go well.

Editor reviews

2 reviews
Notebook Novel and FOOD
(Updated: June 29, 2026)
Overall rating
 
3.0
Plot
 
3.0
Characters
 
N/A
Writing Style
 
N/A
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
3.0
Jamie Kelly is back (in this full color edition) and ready to help her friend Isabella, who is worried about her family finances because her father has lost his job. Jamie is sure that working with Isabella and Angeline the group can come up with a fabulous, food-related money maker, and eventually decide that colored paper plates with divisions for how much of each food group one should eat would be a great idea. Jamie underestimates how much hope Isabella is putting in the plate idea, and eventually lies to her that they have someone who wants to put the plates into production. This causes quite a rift, but Angeline manages to come up with a soda based salad dressing that saves the day.
Good Points
While Jamie never really outgrows her snarky, frenzied demeanor, she does have the best interests of Angeline in mind, and tries very hard to help her friend. The appeal of these books rests in the frenetic pace and sheer goofiness of the situations-- Jamie lets out loud burps, has a friend named Dicky Flartsnutt, and illustrates her fantasies about principal training that includes coffee balloon fights.

Readers who have outgrown Park's Junie B. Jones and her antics or Danziger's Amber Brown will love Jamie sometimes misplaced exuberance and will be thrilled with the full color art. Along with Marissa Moss' Amelia books, Barstow's Ellie McDoodle and Ignatow's The Popularity Papers, the Dear Dumb Diary series is an easy choice for readers who like goofy notebook novels.
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