Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

On our trip this past summer, we ended up buying two Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. This one was purchased at the Eslite main store (open 24 hours!) in Taipei, Taiwan.

Title: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
Publisher: Puffin Books (a division of Penguin; series website at wimpykid.com)
Date: 2016
Writer: Jeff Kinney
Artist: Jeff Kinney

This is the British edition, featuring terms like "petrol" in the otherwise American setting.

Family road trip! Greg Heffley's mom, inspired by a family activities magazine, packs up the whole family in the minivan, with the (barely held together by duct tape) boat in tow, and they are off to seek out adventures, complete with packed "Mom Meals" so they can

There are some cute touches: funny parodies of Captain Underpants and Choose-Your-Own adventure books, and an appearance by Flat Stanley, and author/artist puts together some genuinely funny sequences of cascading chains of small events that lead to complete disasters.

That being said, an awful lot of the humor is just based on members of the family being jerks to each other, and occasionally to strangers. The story also really does a thorough job of sucking the joy out of travel, which was disappointing to someone like me, who always enjoys a good road trip.
avoid having any, um fun really, but Mom is actually trying to avoid fast food.

I get it. It's easier to make up misfortune to laugh at, but the continuous bad attitudes and bad decisions, in spite of the funny moments made this a chore to get through.

The Kiddo (age 11, and grade 5) liked this a lot better than I did, but fortunately, the Kiddo also enjoys family travel a lot more than Greg Heffley does.

Rating: 4/10