Book Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This book was incredibly fun. My ES, who is not a reader, spent almost a week visiting his old best friend from IL during his winter break. It is the first time we've allowed him to stay at someone else's house for more than an overnight and I had a tough time with it. Imagine my surprise, when I called to talk to him and he informed me that he was reading a book there ... of his own accord. He told me the title, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and I heard Michael in the background say, "Yeah, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by B---- H----(my son's name)." HA! I laughed. Apparently, every night when Michael went to sleep, ES stayed up reading for twenty minutes, so he could finish this 217 page book before he went home.

Well, now I know what drew my non-reader to read this book. On the cover, it declares it "a novel in cartoons." O.K., given the fact that all but three pages in the book have some sort of cartoon on them, I suppose you could consider this a picture book for the middle school set. Don't get me wrong; it is not a graphic novel. The text is enhanced by cartoon drawings. It made me think of my friend, Kyle, who now heads up my old writers group in IL. This is the kind of book I could see him writing some day.

Despite the fact that the graphics were probably what initially attracted my son, I have to say, it was DOWNRIGHT HILARIOUS. From the very first page, where we learn that the narrator, Greg Heffley, is following his mom's idea and keeping a "JOURNAL, not a diary... I SPECIFICALLY told her to get one that didn't say 'diary' on it," it is one humorous tale after another. He deals with bullies, girls, gym class and reading class ("They don't come right out and tell you if you're in the Gifted group or the Easy group, but you can figure it out right away by looking at the covers of the books they hand out." - picture of two books, one Einstein as a Child, the other Bink Says Boo.) He writes about Halloween, the school play, running for treasurer and writing Christmas thank you notes (such boyish truth!). My son was right, I read the book in two days. I couldn't put it down. It was entirely entertaining, even to a boy who has said to me "Remember Mom, I've told you before, books don't entertain me." He's been proven wrong and he and I are both anxiously awaiting the sequel, to be called, Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Roderick Rules. Highly recommended. One of the best books for boys I've read in a long time.

If you want to see more of this book which some have called "the funniest book in 2007" head over to http://www.gregheffley.blogspot.com/ or go to the author's site at http://www.wimpykid.com/. On the author's site it said that the sequel was released on Jan. 15th. This is one I might just be willing to run out and buy for my ES - anything to get him reading. Plus, I could use another good chuckle myself.