Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Amazon Product Description:

Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into a new year and a new school where undersize weaklings share the corridors with kids who are taller, meaner and already shaving. Desperate to prove his new found maturity, which only going up a grade can bring, Greg is happy to have his not-quite-so-cool sidekick, Rowley, along for the ride. But when Rowley's star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend's popularity to his own advantage. Recorded in his diary with comic pictures and his very own words, this test of Greg and Rowley's friendship unfolds with hilarious results.


Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a lot of fun. I pounced on it when I saw it on the shelf of a local bookstore and rushed off to the nearest coffee shop to read the first sixty pages. I'm sure the other customers thought I was a bit strange as I kept trying to stifle my laughter, but at times I just couldn't stop chuckling out loud. I was afraid to turn a page and sip my coffee at the same time just in case my coffee drinking and laughing came together in a page-splattering explosion.

Needless to say, I didn't put it down until I finished reading it. I found the comic art / diary style to be an interesting gimmick. The artwork is funny in its simplicity and it drives home a lot of the humour in the stories. The book is really just a collection of interesting thoughts and little stories about life in middle school. In fact, the book is fairly random that way. However, it is still a lot of fun and well worth reading.

I'm curious to see what you will think of it. The thing is, it represents a boy's North American school experience. I'm not sure if the humour will translate. Will it be just as funny for you as it was for me? It's funny to me because I can recognize a lot of what happens in this book as being similar to experiences I had when I was growing up. Please let me know what you think of it.

At the very least, you should read this book because it was in third place on the 2008 ALA chart just behind Eclipse and Harry Potter. It is worth checking it out just to see what all the fuss was about. You be the judge.

Have a look at the first few pages here at Amazon. By the way, Best Eastern just got a shipment in and the cost is $15.80. You can also get on the wait list for this one if you like by adding a comment or leaving a message on the shoutmix. Icklebooks is waiting for their copies and I asked Reader's Haven to order it. BTW, I enjoyed this book and I will probably read it again someday. Therefore, I probably won't be donating it to the reading room. Sorry, waitlisted students are the only ones who will get to read it (unless you buy a copy yourself).

4/5 Stars