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Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a realistic fiction novel written by American author Jeff Kinney, the first book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and is followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. The book acts as a journal and follows the adventures of seventh grader Greg Heffley. The third book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, was released on January 13, 2009, and the fourth one, Dog Days, is coming out October 12, 2009. The fifth, My Last Year is due to come out in 2010. A movie of the series is planned and will be distributed by 20th Century Fox in July 2009.

The book was originally on FunBrain.com, but when it was adapted into a print book, Jeff Kinney decided to split it into a series.

The series has stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for children's books for 17 weeks as of May 19, 2009.

Plot Summary

The first book begins with an introduction to Greg Heffley and his middle school life. Despite the title, and not trying to sound like a wimp, Greg tries to explain how the book is a journal and not a diary. This book takes place during his (presumably) sixth grade year. The book also explains the cheese touch early on. It is similar to the game of tag in which the person who touched the cheese (a moldy piece of Swiss cheese left on the blacktop) had to get rid of it by touching someone else. In the first half of the book, events such as Halloween, learning to know how to wrestle, and acting in the play of The Wizard of Oz are told. During trick or treating, Greg and Rowley are ambushed by a group of teenagers. Then they take refuge at Greg's grandmother's house and taunt the teenagers from there. On Christmas Day, it shows Greg getting very few presents that he would like. Rowley bought Greg a Big Wheel. Greg then throws a football at the front tire of the bicycle while Rowley is riding the Big Wheel and he breaks his arm. At school, Rowley is surrounded by girls who encourage him to get well which makes Greg mad. Later, he and Rowley join the Safety Patrol whose responsibility are walking home morning kindergartners. However, Greg gets kicked off the Patrol for chasing the kindergartners with a worm. When Greg gets kicked off, Rowley starts to ignore Greg. Slowly, they begin drifting apart and Rowley starts hanging out with Collin Lee and when he went to Rowley's house, Greg retaliates by spending his night at Fregley. That turns into a disaster as Fregley goes crazy on jellybeans and Greg runs away in the middle of the night. Nearing the end of the school year, Rowley's comic strip is entered into the school's newspaper. Greg tells Rowley to list him as the co-creator because it was his idea and joke punchline. Rowley then denies that Greg had anything to do with it. They get ready to fight but are then interrupted by the teenagers they taunted on Halloween. They showed up to pay them back and they force Rowley to eat the cheese, but Greg gets away by saying he's allergic to dairy products. The next day, Greg explains that he removed the cheese, but the way he worded it, it sounded like Greg touched the cheese. For the rest of the year, Greg was in seclusion from everyone else and he and Rowley became friends again.

Characters

• Greg Heffley is the main character and owner of the diary. He is the "wimpy kid." Greg is sometimes selfish, ignorant, and vain. Greg is also thinking up scams from time to time. Greg takes advantage of his rather dim-witted and naive friend Rowley Jefferson. Greg will also let Rowley take the blame for something he did. He can be a nice person sometimes. However, he is usually too conceif someone told Rodrick how Löded Diper was really spelled it would be news to him. Rodrick loves to pick on, humiliate, and overall make Greg miserable. Rodrick is one of the few characters who has eyebrows. Rodrick also has a liking for shrunken heads asking it for Christmas once in the series.
• Manny Heffley is Greg's younger brother, who calls Greg "Bubby." Manny is very small and has an overbite. Manny has an art for getting away with anything because he is the smallest, the "baby" and because he can use his cute looks to get out of trouble, he is never punished for anything. Greg also says that Manny is an excellent climber and sneak. Most of the reason that he angers Greg is that he gets more rights than Greg used to have at Manny's age (three), for instance bring his "playing gear" to church so that Manny will be comfortable. When Greg complains about Manny's mischief, he responds, "I'm ownwy thwee!"("I'm only three!).
• Susan Heffley is Greg's mother. Susan is a middle class mom who is caring, but sometimes overprotective. She is a good mom and wife, but usually embarrasses her children and husband. However, she is nearly always cheery and accepting. She also likes to call Greg "Honeybunches," which nearly always embarrasses Greg. The fact that she never removes her glasses bears a resemblance to Jane Drabble, another cartoon character. Greg calls Susan "Mom" whenever he writes about her in his diary. Greg often shows evidence that Susan doesn't understand kids at Greg's age.
• Frank Heffley is Greg's father. Frank likes sports, writing and "building character." Frank hates video games, heavy metal, and teenagers in general. Frank likes doing outdoor projects and weight lifting and many other "manly things." Frank also encourages Rodrick, Greg, and Manny to do "manly stuff" with him, especially since Greg was younger and Frank tried to encourage him to work out so he could have big muscles, only to have Greg respond with, "Muscles are gross!" Frank also has extremely high cholesterol but is a junk food addict and his favorite hobby is creating his Civil War diorama, moving around the plastic soldiers to make it as accurate as possible, painting new guns, constructing the background or the battlefield, etc. He keeps the diorama locked in a workroom in the basement and only ever let Greg get inside a couple of times when he showed him the "latest improvements". Frank never really lets anyone see the diorama, and Greg caught him telling Manny about a "monster" in the workroom to make sure that Manny stay away from that part of the basement. Greg calls Frank "Dad" whenever he writes about him. He always is encouraging Greg to do something active.
• Rowley Jefferson is Greg's best friend who usually helps with Greg with his schemes. He is almost always seen with his mouth agape. He was also seen with a square-shaped head. Rowley took over the "Zoo-Wee Mama" comic strip. Rowley is dim-witted and naive. Greg frequently exploits this naivety to get him to do things like ride down a hill while Greg throws a football at him and to carry him up the hill after school. He is also "slightly overweight." He has very overprotective parents, who usually try to stop Rowley from doing anything they find dangerous or inappropriate.
• Fregley Farley is Greg's neighbor and an all-around strange boy. Fregley exhibits his strangeness by having a "secret freckle" and playing a game called "diaper whip." Fregley also has a liking for stuffing dirt in his ears and beating kites with a stick. He likes hanging out on his front lawn. He also likes wrestling, playing twister, and speaking in a made up language. Fregley also is not allowed to have sugar, because he gets "crazy."
• Uncle Charlie is Greg's uncle. He is described by Greg as very nice and will get him whatever he wants as a present. However, the couple of times he has shown up in the book, he has upset Greg with his gifts. An example is when Greg asked for a Barbie Beach House to use as an army fort, he got Greg a Barbie doll instead which makes Greg get a Barbie Shoe up his nose.

Errors

• On page 193 Greg says Fregley ate the whole bag of jelly beans, but in the picture the bag is still very full.
• On page 176 the two kids have different pictures on the front page of their newspaper.
• On page 109 Greg says he has been able to keep the nickname, Bubby, that Manny calls him quiet for five years. However, Manny is only two years old because on page 42 in the second book it is revealed that he is three and that book takes place during the following year.
• In the comic, Creighton the Curious Student, on page 178 the first panel shows that the teacher has six hairs on his head but in the next panel he only has five.
• In the top picture on page 22 the kid in the middle has an ear design, but in the bottom picture he doesn't.
• On page 91 the radio has buttons but on page 92 it doesn't.
• On page 70 the top picture shows that Rowley's costume has the vertical tape on top of the horizontal tape, but in the bottom picture the horizontal tape is on top of the vertical tape.
• On page 70 the teenager in the back of the truck has a lump in his throat at the top picture, but in the bottom picture he doesn't.
• On page 71 the teenager in the back of the truck has four teeth, but in all the other pictures of him he has five.
• The number of holes in the Cheese keeps changing in every picture of it.
• On page 94 Patty Farrell's ponytails are tied by beads, but on page 98 they're tied by bows. Then again, Patty probably choses what she wants every day.

References

1. Jeff Kinney. "About the Books". Retrieved 2008-08-01.
2. Jeff Kinney (2008-05-06). "Book 3 Has a Cover!". Retrieved 2008-08-07.

External links

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid on FunBrain.com

• 2007 books
• Novels by Jeff Kinney