![]() ![]() Luckily for us, what Greg Heffley says he won't do and what he actually does are two very different things. "Just don't expect me to be all 'Dear Diary' this and 'Dear Diary' that." In Diary of a Wimpy Kid, author and illustrator Jeff Kinney introduces us to an unlikely hero. After a moment, she opened it and started reading it again from the beginning.It's a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. Upon finishing, she closed the book with great satisfaction. When my fifth grader learned I had scored an early copy of “Dog Days,” she wrestled it away from me and began to devour it. Questionable behavior aside, there is no question that kids love these books. “It leaves room for the child to be challenged to decide what he or she thinks.” “If you had an omniscient voice saying, ‘Do the right thing,’ kids would tune that out,” he said. Sparrow says part of the book’s appeal is that it doesn’t moralize. “I’m trying to find a way to earn money without doing any actual work,” he explains.ĭr. DIARIE OF A WIMPY KID FREEHis father remows a customer’s lawn free of charge, but Greg insists he’s done nothing wrong. In “Dog Days,” Greg starts a lawn business, but cuts the grass haphazardly and complains when his customers won’t pay. Even my kindergarten child understands that Greg is being naughty, and that he shouldn’t act like him.” “If there is a lesson in the book, it’s to do the opposite of what Greg does. “I have complete respect for that position, and I’ve been shocked there hasn’t been much more of it,” he said. But a few parents do complain that Greg sets a bad example. Kinney says most of his feedback comes from grateful parents who say the books have turned their children into readers. ![]() In the end Rowley is punished, and Greg’s mother, who mistakenly believes he’s made the right choice, rewards him with ice cream. Greg’s mother senses he is struggling with a moral dilemma and advises him to “do the right thing.”Īfter tossing and turning, Greg concludes, “I decided that the right thing to do was to just let Rowley take one for the team this time around.” In one much-talked-about scene from the first book, Greg, who is in middle school, benefits from a case of mistaken identity: because he happens to be wearing Rowley’s jacket when he terrifies a group of kindergarteners with worms on a stick, his best friend is the one who faces punishment. Rather than offering moralistic lessons, he focused on the humor inherent in the misguided decisions that children often make. Kinney says he originally wrote the stories for adults, aiming for funny and nostalgic recollections of childhood, and “never imagined” them as children’s literature. “For parents, I suppose reading the books or at least discussing them with our kids will give us a more realistic idea of what their lives are like, the struggles they face every day.” “The power of the book is about the wimpy kid, a regular kid with regular problems, just dealing with what life brings him,” Dr. DIARIE OF A WIMPY KID SERIESLawrence Rosen, a pediatrician who founded the Whole Child Center in Oradell, N.J., says he has talked about the series with his third-grade daughter, who says she likes that the main character is “not perfect.” ![]()
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