Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Big Shot

Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid Big Shot is a very funny basketball diary for 9 year olds, starring a boy who retires from sport in the very first entry.

What happens

Greg Heffley reckons he was born without whatever makes people good at games. School Field Day doesn't help. His own teacher swaps him to another class (and throws in a pack of whiteboard pens to seal the deal!).

Mum thinks the trouble is that he's never been on a REAL team. So she asks for one more go, and if it doesn't work out she'll stop going on about it.

Greg picks basketball. Partly because a napkin he once lobbed into somebody's milk glass is the best athletic thing he's ever done. Mostly because there are only twenty places and he's fairly sure he'll be cut.

Then he makes a team anyway. Just not one of the good ones. It's a brand new team made up mostly of the kids nobody picked, practising in a school canteen with no hoop.

His teammates are a joy. Two brothers who are always trying to flatten each other. A boy who hasn't said a word in years.

A girl who's on the boys' team because she bit someone at the girls' tryouts. Honestly, who wouldn't want her on their side?

It's all in Greg's handwriting on lined paper, with a cartoon on pretty much every page and lots of big CAPITALS. It's very easy to whizz through.

And the real fun is being stuck inside Greg's head. He shushes a gym full of booing fans before a free throw. He takes himself off in the middle of a game, which apparently players aren't allowed to do.

Under the jokes there's a very real worry. Greg isn't scared of losing.

He's scared of being the one who misses the big shot and never hears the end of it (there's a man in his town still being reminded of a miss from twenty years ago). Anyone who's ever dreaded PE will get that.

Mum is just as funny. She waves a PUT GREG IN sign from the stands and shouts tips at the coach. She's the parent who wants it more than the kid does.

It's the sixteenth of Greg's diaries, but he explains who's who as he goes.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, go back to Dog Days. Same Greg, same Mum, and the same tug of war, this time over a summer he'd rather spend in front of the telly while she keeps on about the town pool.