written by Jeff Kinney

Something about Diary of a Wimpy Kid feels familiar—and not in that “I feel as though I’ve read this before” way. It’s more like an “I feel as though I’ve lived this before” way. I think that a whole lot of people can relate, no matter what age or gender they’re currently stumbling through, and therein lies the grace of the book.
 
Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the chronicle of a school year, as told by perpetually out of place Greg Heffley. It’s a tale of grand ideas that self-destruct, friends who are lost and gained, and being a little too smart for your own good, but mostly, it’s about trying to survive a whole year without dying of embarrassment. While embarrassment won’t actually kill you, we find that it is not a completely unwelcome alternative.
 
Jeff Kinney is completely sympathetic to the plight of childhood, and it’s clear that he’s lived at least a small portion of the events in this and subsequent Wimpy Kid books. In addition to being a deep part of Kinney, the books also come from a kind of collective consciousness that very smartly bridges the gap between kid and former kid. I don’t think that my niece and I have ever both enjoyed the same book so much.
 
The author doesn’t portray our protagonist as a saint. Greg’s a kid with mixed intentions, usually either driven by self-preservation or an irresistible urge to antagonize those even lower on the social ladder than himself. These things don’t come without consequence, though, either directly or karmically.
 
Those familiar with the Captain Underpants series can draw comparisons between that and the visual style of Wimpy Kid, though the similarities end there. The book is definitely text-heavy, with paragraphs punctuated by a picture once or twice a page, which is a fairly inviting scenario to a reluctant reader. The pictures themselves are simple line drawings that accentuate the meaning of the preceding text, in a formula that’s easy to understand and feels a little like a well-timed punchline.
 
This is a series of books that has been wildly popular for at least a year in my local library, even lapsing into that dangerous territory of “required reading” for some grades. If there’s a moral behind it all, it’s the tried-and-true “be yourself,” with the addendum of “…and let other people be themselves too.”
 
Wimpy Kid is smart, and while it occasionally goes for mild bathroom humor, if it can make a jaded 20-something kid laugh out loud, it’s got to be great.

-- Collin David

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