Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars The Pleasing Diary of an Unpleasant Anti-Hero Clueless teachers, brutal bullies, dorky friends, sadistic big brothers, spoiled kid brothers, interfering parents (including mothers who make you do things you don't want to do because your reluctance means they'll be good for you), ineffectual relatives, moldy cheese cooties, and more. In Jeff Kinney's popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2007), Greg Heffley is writing his JOURNAL (though the book his mother got him says "diary" on the cover, diaries are for sissies), detailing the trials and tribulations of a year of middle school. School is not idyllic. Greg figures that he's ranked about 53rd in popularity, and his only "friend," Rowley Jefferson, is about 150. Greg egregiously takes advantage of Rowley, playing mean tricks on him that his own big brother plays on him and that he doesn't dare playing on his younger brother Mannie, using Rowley as a fall guy when he himself would otherwise get in trouble for something, all while telling us (or his diary, er, journal) that he's taken Rowley under his wing, feeling sorry for him. Mind you, we take most of what Greg says with a grain of salt. He fantasizes about becoming rich and famous and says that the other kids in his school are morons, but he plugs the headphones into the wrong jack and falls for his brother's "first day of school" practical joke, and sees his schemes to become popular usually end up making him infamous. Jeff Kinney, by the way, has Greg's voice down pat: "I thought about really letting Rowely have it for ratting me out like that, but then I realized something. In June, all the officers in the Safety Patrol go on a trip to Six Flags, and they get to take along one friend. I need to make sure Rowley knows I'm his guy." And the text is all hand-printed, in typical middle-school age boy's style, which suits the many cartoonish illustrations with which Greg adorns his experiences. His simple and crude pictures are effective, spicing up and complementing his words. Greg draws himself neutrally and other characters as having exaggeratedly ugly or weird features, like big noses and big mouths, which is of a piece with his illusion of superiority. The comics that Greg and Rowley draw at one point are pretty funny in an immature way, even cruder than the base illustrations, and just as effective. The plot is episodic or picaresque; perhaps if there were an over-arching story woven through the humiliations and disappointments of middle-school life, it would be Greg's friendship with Rowley, which undergoes a severe test at one point, when Rowley's usually saintly patience and good humor is bent to the breaking point (unsurprisingly, Greg sees himself, not Rowley, as the abused party). There are plenty of real moments, like Greg's embarrassment when Rowley invites him over "to play after school" (instead of "to hang out"); Greg's preferring video game wrestling to PE wrestling; Greg's confusion about popularity (the favorite boy of girls in elementary school was the fastest runner, but in middle school things are about wealth and fashion and physical appearance); Greg's well-meaning but embarrassing Mom, who makes him do things like try out for a part in the Wizard of Oz musical and scolds a worker in a Haunted House for being too scary; etc. There are humorous happenings, like Rowley and Greg's night of trick-or-treating or Greg's explanation for wanting a Barbie Dream House for Christmas. There are also unfunny and even disturbing events, like Greg breaking Rowley's arm while "playing" with a Big Wheel and a football, or not helping his Grandmother clean her house after it was toilet papered because of Greg. The denoument of the Wizard of Oz sequence was supposed to be funny but didn't crack me up. The do-it-yourself haunted house scene was supposed to be funny but felt lame. Of course, all that must be part of the humor, for I imagine that kids must enjoy seeing a boy act badly in ways they know they couldn't get away with. Greg is quite the anti-hero. And after all, Jeff Kinney usually has Greg get nailed by karma or divine retribution or adults or other kids. If young readers cotton onto the irony by which Greg's failings as a person (student, son, brother, friend, etc.) are depicted from his own selfish and self-centered point of view and realize that they are meant to be avoided and not emulated, the book's quirky satire of school and teachers and parents should be benignly entertaining. With its diary illusion and anti-hero irony and short sentences, short paragraphs, and many funny pictures, the book must be easy and fun to read for kids who usually don't like reading (and of course for those who love reading). However, I can't help but compare Diary of a Wimpy Kid to something like Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy (1964) or even to Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes (1985-95) and feel that I'm witnessing the decline in substance and quality of American popular culture. Or is it just that Kinney and Greg make me uncomfortably recall my own junior high hell? View all my reviews
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