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Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book Review

Updated on June 20, 2011

Book by Jeff Kinney

As you've probably heard, there is a movie now out called Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  This is based upon a series of books written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney.  The following is a review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid (the first of numerous books in the series), the book that started it all.  If you were seeking a review of the movie, all that can be said is, if it's half of what the book is, it'll be worth the time spent watching.


Diary of a Wimpy Kid tells about Greg's life in a patchwork of different stories and aspects of Gregs life, not a singular story.  In fact, the only real common thread throughout the tale is Greg, his parents, and his friends and school mates.


Jeff Kinney writes as though he were a kid himself, making the book identifiable to its young readers; and his method for such identification is pure, absolute humor.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid is immediately funny, from the very beginning paragraph. It's not just funny, it's hysterically ticklish at some points -as when the narrator Greg, "The Wimpy Kid"- makes a haunted house which has reprecussions he'd not expected.


 Another example can be found on pages 9 and 10 in which the dreaded CHEESE TOUCH is first introduced and goes on to be an idea which figures into the story a few more times after.  The Cheese Touch is an example of just how kids in elementary school and junior high tend to think and act, in ways that would make most adults guffaw with surprise and delight (just ask any parent).


At times you might think that Greg is the bad luck kid, though he is generally the source of his own misery, and might actually get young readers thinking.  However, the book doesn't come off as didactic or parental in the least, which will endear it to every kid that reads it.  Further, all of the drawings in the book will help and attract young readers who normally don't enjoy reading.  In this day and age of video games and constant television viewing, what parent doesn't enjoy such a break for little minds?


Like any fun book, this one has a full cast of memorable and yet recognizable characters: the Bully (actually, a few of them); the "morons" that sit on both sides of Greg; the Best friend, Rowley; Jenny, the love interest, and the nerdy kid who proclaims,  "I'll show you my secret freckle" and who later proves to be a bit of an antagonist to Greg during the school's wrestling season.


Diary of a Wimpy Kid is not merely fun and funny, but is also modern and egalitarian in its presentation, as where Greg's father is doing housework on page 17, and where, when Greg was 7, he wrote "the only thing I really wanted for Christmas was a Barbie Dream House...[which would] be really awesome for my toy soldiers."  (He surprisingly ended up with a Beach Fun Barbie, instead.)


You can't not laugh at least once every 2 or 3 pages, as will your kids.  In fact, it will be just as enjoyable for adults who can "relive" elementary school from the safety of pages in a book.  Read this book and smile.

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