Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Cabin Fever

Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid Cabin Fever is a funny run-up-to-Christmas diary for 9 year olds, kept by a boy who's fairly sure the police are after him.

What happens

It's the sixth of Greg Heffley's diaries. It runs through November and December, and Greg is trying very hard to stay on Santa's good side. Mum has brought home a doll called Santa's Scout that supposedly reports back to the North Pole (Rodrick enjoys this far too much).

Being good doesn't come naturally, though. Greg's money-making schemes keep going wrong. He clears a snowy driveway with a garden sprinkler, which works brilliantly until the whole thing freezes. He scrubs a sticker off Dad's new car with steel wool and takes the paint off with it. Who hasn't had a plan that seemed like genius at the time?

Then he and Rowley decide to run their own rival Holiday Bazaar. They make posters on neon green card, it rains, and the green runs all over the school wall. The local paper calls it vandalism. Greg spends a LOT of the book listening out for a knock at the door.

And then the snow arrives. A blizzard shuts the Heffleys in the house, the basement floods, the food runs low and Greg ends up sharing his bedroom with Rodrick. It's being stuck at home over the holidays, times a hundred.

Reading it is like being handed Greg's actual diary. The words are hand-lettered on lined paper and there's a cartoon on nearly every page. Lots of the jokes live in the pictures, like half the boys in PE turning up with six-packs drawn on in mascara. Speech bubbles and big capitals do the shouting.

The pages turn quickly. A child reading alone can get through it in a sitting or two and feel very pleased with themselves. If your reader usually looks at a page of solid text and sighs, this is a much friendlier way in.

Greg isn't always the nicest narrator. He's cheeky about his family and quick to blame everyone else. But there's a softer side too, and when it really counts he takes the punishment himself rather than drop his best friend in it.

What to read next

If they finish wanting more of Greg and Rowley, The Third Wheel is the next diary in the series, and this time there's a school dance to survive.