Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a very funny school diary for 8 year olds, kept by a boy who'd like you to know the whole thing was his mum's idea.

What happens

Greg Heffley has just started middle school. He's one of the small ones, and some of the other boys need to shave twice a day. His big aim for the year? Getting more popular. He reckons he's about 52nd or 53rd in his grade right now (and he puts his best friend Rowley somewhere around 150).

The diary runs from September all the way to June, a few days at a time. There's a mouldy slice of cheese on the playground that NOBODY will go near. There's a haunted house in Rowley's basement, where the Lake of Blood is an old paddling pool with half a bottle of ketchup in it. And there's a school play where Greg is a tree with exactly one line (it's "Ouch").

Rowley is the heart of it all. He's sweet, a bit young for his age and very loyal, and Greg treats him pretty badly. When Rowley gets stuck under a homemade barbell made of milk jugs full of sand, Greg pulls up a stool and reads. Greg never sees it. Your reader will, and that's where the giggles come from.

By spring, though, it's Rowley everyone is noticing, and Greg doesn't like that one bit. What happens to a friendship when the friend you've been bossing around gets popular instead?

Reading it feels like flicking through a real notebook. Every page is lined paper with the words handwritten across it, and there's a cartoon on almost every page. A lot of the jokes live in the pictures, like Dad lying in wait on Halloween with a dustbin full of water. Big capitals do the shouting, and the entries are short, so it's easy to stop and start. For a child who looks at a page of solid text and sighs, it's a brilliant halfway house.

It's also very honest about how embarrassing family can be. Greg's little brother Manny calls him "Bubby" in front of the whole school. His mum turns up as the supply teacher. You'll probably recognise a few of these moments from your own school days!

What to read next

This is where the series starts, and the diary picks up again the next school year in Rodrick Rules. Greg has a brand new journal, and a big brother who already got his hands on the last one.