Diary of a Wimpy Kid
2007
- school stories
- families
- diaries
- middle schools
- family life
- fiction
- children's stories
- schools
- friendship
- juvenile fiction
The story
Greg Heffley finds thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings like him share the hallways with much bigger kids who are already shaving. But nothing scares Greg more than the moldy piece of cheese on the blacktop. Can he and his best friend, Rowley Jefferson, make it through the year without getting the Cheese Touch?
What it’s like
Scribbled cartoon panels sit beside short, loose diary entries, the handwriting-style lettering and stick-figure doodles giving the page the feel of a notebook someone has been secretly drawing in during class. The voice is breezy and self-absorbed, full of deadpan asides and misspellings, so reading it feels like eavesdropping on a clever, aggrieved eleven-year-old. Pages turn fast, many spreads are mostly drawings with a few lines of text, and nothing lingers long enough to get heavy. Set in a suburban middle school and a split-level family home, its world is ordinary: cafeteria trays, a messy basement, a sibling who gets all the attention, a best friend who is slightly too trusting. Its emotional register is wry, warm and light, with the comedy coming from small humiliations and schemes that backfire. The mood suits a lazy afternoon, a long train ride, or reading aloud to a child. There is no real violence, only playground teasing and the mild dread of the cheese. It is for kids who like comics and diaries, and for adults who enjoy a quick, sly laugh.
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