Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This book cracked me up!! I laughed from the very first "this is not a diary" to the very last "Class Clown" picture. Junior high school is one of those times in my life (as I am sure it is for many of you) that I never wish to relive...in fact my daughter is only 3 months old and I already dread that time in her life. BUT...this book made all of those experiences more humorous. What this book does is put those dreaded experiences into a new perspective - one that can be laughed through. Middle school is hard for just about everyone because you go through so many changes at different speeds and it is difficult to cope with. I think boys and girls alike would be drawn to this book. What I like so much about the book is that just about everyone can identify with something in it. We recognize ourselves in the pages. For adults, it helps us gain insight into our students' lives by helping us remember what we went through. For students, they recognize their current situation and find someone to identify with.

Though I doubt Jeff Kinney is currently a middle school student, he truly captures the words, thoughts, and mindset of students at that age. He portrays many of the fears of embarassment, humiliation, self-centeredness, "girl cooties" and any other kind of cooties with amazing accuracy. The voice and perspective are masterfully written. The illustrations are also tremendous. I found myself looking forward to the illustrations of the events, because they were so detailed and added more understanding of the text (and, of course, they were hilarious!).

I believe this book could be used in any classroom from 5th grade on up. In fact, my copy is headed to my husband's 5th grade classroom tomorrow.