I bought this last fall at a bookstore here in Saigon as a Christmas gift for the Kiddo.
Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Publisher: Amulet Books (a division of Abrams; series website at wimpykid.com)
Date: 2009
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Artist: Jeff Kinney
I read this aloud with my son (age 8).
This is an interesting mix in terms of its format. Not exactly a prose novel, and not exactly a graphic novel, but something in between, with short cartoons with dialogue that serve as illustration and enhancement of the story.
The story itself felt pretty familiar. The main character is a lazy middle-schooler who is trying to navigate his way through the hallway politics of his school while getting by on doing as little actual work as possible on pretty much anything.
The problem for me was the lack of growth of the main character. The situations are funny, but Greg Heffley barely learns or changes over the course of a school year, with even the climactic regaining of a friendship feeling mostly like a return to the (abusive, when it comes right down to it) status quo.
I was also disappointed by the fallback to treating girls in that kind of "mysterious other species" vibe that you see in so many stories for young readers told from a boy's point of view. Everything about girls in this book (well, what little there is) is cliché and stereotype.
I did like the cartoons. They were effective, and added a bit of extra edge to the jokes. The situations that Greg Heffley finds himself in get more outrageous as the story progresses, and there were some genuinely funny moments. My son also enjoyed some of the catchphrases that come up.
There is a fun segment about Greg's attempt to become the official cartoonist of the school newspaper that strikes a nice nerdy note.
But in the end, there really aren't any likeable characters at the start of the book, and they really haven't gotten any more likeable by the end. Seeing them get various doses of comeuppance in between wasn't enough to keep me entertained.
Rating: 4/10
Title: Diary of a Wimpy KidPublisher: Amulet Books (a division of Abrams; series website at wimpykid.com)
Date: 2009
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Artist: Jeff Kinney
I read this aloud with my son (age 8).
This is an interesting mix in terms of its format. Not exactly a prose novel, and not exactly a graphic novel, but something in between, with short cartoons with dialogue that serve as illustration and enhancement of the story.
The story itself felt pretty familiar. The main character is a lazy middle-schooler who is trying to navigate his way through the hallway politics of his school while getting by on doing as little actual work as possible on pretty much anything.
The problem for me was the lack of growth of the main character. The situations are funny, but Greg Heffley barely learns or changes over the course of a school year, with even the climactic regaining of a friendship feeling mostly like a return to the (abusive, when it comes right down to it) status quo.
I was also disappointed by the fallback to treating girls in that kind of "mysterious other species" vibe that you see in so many stories for young readers told from a boy's point of view. Everything about girls in this book (well, what little there is) is cliché and stereotype.
I did like the cartoons. They were effective, and added a bit of extra edge to the jokes. The situations that Greg Heffley finds himself in get more outrageous as the story progresses, and there were some genuinely funny moments. My son also enjoyed some of the catchphrases that come up.
There is a fun segment about Greg's attempt to become the official cartoonist of the school newspaper that strikes a nice nerdy note.
But in the end, there really aren't any likeable characters at the start of the book, and they really haven't gotten any more likeable by the end. Seeing them get various doses of comeuppance in between wasn't enough to keep me entertained.
Rating: 4/10
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