Diary of a Wimpy Kid (book)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a children's book by Jeff Kinney. The story is about a boy named Greg Heffley and his life in the 7th grade. The novel, which switches between handwritten text and comic book-style illustration, received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal upon its release.grade, from picking seats on the first day to Christmas vacation to the last day. Released in 2007

It was originally shown as a web-book on Funbrain, which has been published in book form. The book is the first in a five part series by Kinney. The second book will be published in January sometime in the first two weeks and is already in warehouses and is going to start getting shipped in January 1, 2008.

Major Characters

• Gregory 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. Greg is not very athletic, much to his father's disappointment. Greg also tried to explain to his father that you can play football, baseball, basketball, and other sports on his game system without "getting all sweaty and stuff" after his father told him to play outside. Greg also has a huge dislike for a comic called "L'il Cutie," which is described by Greg as the lamest comic ever. Greg's father seems to agree with him. Greg's older brother, Rodrick, buys him a book, The Best Of L'il Cutie, every Christmas since he knows Greg hates the comic. Greg's life, as he describes it, is the lamest life a 7th grader could live.

• Rodrick Heffley is Greg's older brother. Rodrick is a mean, ignorant, selfish, and sneaky teen. Rodrick loves heavy metal music and has a band called "Loaded Diaper" but on his van it says "Löded Diper". Rodrick loves to pick on Greg, humiliate Greg, and make Greg miserable. Rodrick is one of the few characters who has eyebrows. Rodrick also has a liking for shrunken heads.

• Manny Heffley is Greg's younger brother, who calls Greg "Bubby." Manny is also 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, although Frank and Ann probably wouldn't ground Manny for anything. Greg also says that Manny is an excellent climber and sneak, displayed in a scene in which Manny gets to the top of Greg's closet, picks the lock from Greg's possession box and stuffs his Walkman with brownies. Manny is fond of drawing, candy, and getting Greg into trouble. Most of the reason that he angers Greg is that he gets more rights than Greg used to have at Manny's age (five), 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 owwny fiiive!"

• Ann Heffley Ann is Greg's mother. Ann is a middle class mom who is caring, but sometimes overcaring. Ann is a good mom and wife, but sometimes embarreses her children/husband, but is nearly always cheery and accepting. She also likes to call Greg "Honeybunches," which usually embarrasses Greg. The fact that she never removes her glasses bears a resemblance to June Drabble, another cartoon character. Greg calls Ann "Mom" whenever he writes about her in his diary. Greg often shows evidence that Ann doesn't understand kids at Greg's age.

• Frank Heffley is Greg's father. Frank likes sports, reading and "building character." Frank hates video games, rock and roll, and Bill. 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 a habit of doing stuff for other people if they don't do things right, much to Rodricks pleasure, especially since he "plays dumb" with his homework. Frank also had a cat, which his father told him ran away to a Butterfly Farm and was very, very happy, although in reality the dog froze to death on the front porch (in winter) because Frank's dad forgot to let him in. Years later when Frank's dad came over for a family visit in the winter, he told Frank the truth, since he said he and Frank could probably laugh about it by now, but Frank threw his dad out of the house without giving him his jacket. Frank also has extremely high cholesterol and his favorite hobby is creating his Civil War diorama, moving around the plastic soldiers to make it more accurate, 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. Frank has nightmares about Rowley being a klutz and bouncing on a trapmoline only to land on the diorama. Because of this, whenever Rowley visit's Frank's house, he gets the same greeting by Frank: "The basement is off-limits."

• Rowley Jefferson is Greg's best friend who usually helps with Greg with his schemes. Rowley is dim-witted and naive. He is also "slightly overweight."

• Fregly is Greg's neighbor, and an all-around strange boy. Fregley also has a "secret freckle." Fregley also has a liking for stuffing dirt in his ears and beating kites with a stick. Also likes hanging out on his front lawn. He also likes wrestling, playing twister, chasing people around with a booger on his finger, and speaking in a made up language. Fregley also is not allowed to have sugar, because he gets "crazy." Fregly's mother keeps him out of school and homeschools him herself, probably because of his "strange-ness".

• Bill is one of Rodrick's friends who plays (and made the title) in Rodrick's band "Löded Diper." (He actually thinks "Loaded Diaper" is spelled like the band name) Bill is much older than Rodrick and has the look of a surfer. Frank has a big dislike for Bill, because he thinks if Rodrick hangs around with Bill he will end up like him! Bill lives in his parents' basement, and is about 35 years old. He doesn't have a real job and eventually helps Greg with the Bishop Garrigan problem.

• Chirag is a boy who supposedly moves away to California but at the last minute his father decides not to take the job in California and Chirag stays. He is the victim of a stupid practical prank (the "invisible Chirag Gag) that takes the length of literally five months until Greg, the ringleader gets in trouble and somehow becomes Chirag's friend.

• Piper Piper doesn't go to Greg's school, only to his church. Greg has a crush on her, even though she barely notices him.

• Gramma is Ann's mother. Gramma is retired and is very much like her daughter, but Ann is sometimes overpowered by her.

• Grampa is Frank's father. Grampa also had a "lady-friend." Ann does not like her too much. Grampa also is responsible for the death of Frank's childhood cat, since he froze to death on the front porch in winter because he forgot to let him in. Granpa told Frank that his cat ran away to a Butterfly Farm and was very, very happy. Years later, when Grampa came over for a family visit in the winter he told Frank what really happened since he figured that Frank could laugh about it by now. Frank responded by throwing him out of the house without giving him his jacket.

Plot

Greg Heffley and his friend Rowley are "undersized weaklings" in their school, hoping simply to just survive, but when Rowley's fame starts to grow, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship. Greg is also having trouble at home, especially since his dad says he might have to send Greg to military school if Greg doesn't "toughen up," and to make matters worse, Greg's big brother picks on him.

Ann's Ideas

Cultural significance in Greg's life is his Mom's art of coming up with systems of discipline.

The Swear Jar

Five-year-old Manny wants to be educated well by Mom, and Mom does not want Manny to be exposed to "swear words" and "cuss words." So she develops the "Swear Jar." Whenever she catches Greg, Rodrick, and even his Dad swearing, especially around Manny, they have to pay the Swear Jar--literally. And this is the catch: Manny gets to keep all the money in the Swear Jar for himself! In the web version, Greg says "Explain the logic of THAT one to me." about Manny getting the money.

Mom Bucks

Mom cracks up about how Greg and Rodrick always complain that they do not have enough spending money. Mom Bucks is a system in which they earn play money by doing extra chores and they can cash it in for real money, each worth one cent(to Greg's dismay), or getting out of doing chores. The end of Mom Bucks takes place when Greg "borrows" all the play money from his friend's board game set and uses it as Mom Bucks, and Mom never notices, until Greg is unprepared for an assignment that was given to Rodrick several years back by the same teacher. Greg wants to use Rodrick's assignment but Rodrick is charging twenty thousand Mom Bucks for it, so Greg gives him the Mom Bucks and then Rodrick tries to cash it all in at the same time for a motorcycle and Mom realizes that he's up to something because she knew he does NOT have that much Mom Bucks, so she finds out about Greg's stash of Mom Bucks and that's when Mom Bucks is officially over.

Addiction to Video Games

A major cultural significance in Greg's life is video games. He enjoys many types of video games; the book mentions that he's totally addicted to a series of video games called "Twisted Wizard." The book also mentions that he played a racing game called "Formula One Racing" with Rowley and about 40 other video games that Rowley owns. Greg's addiction is so emphasized that when he is banned from video games he goes over to Collin's house to play videogames there. Later in the book Greg gets extremely mad when Mom buys Manny some educational video games and makes him share the system with Manny. Greg also wants to name his soccer team "Twisted Wizards" and get the "Game Zone" to sponsor it. Later he also enters a video game tournament.

Sweetie Pie

Greg's dad, Frank, gets a family dog around springtime. Later that night the family holds a council at dinner to decide what to name the dog. Manny started advising every single animal name he knew, like "Eagle". Greg thinks these ideas are really dumb and his parents are encouraging it. Greg tries to get Rodrick to help him talk down Manny's ideas, but Rodrick soon joins Manny's side when Manny advises "Turtle" as a name for the dog. Rodrick points out that they could call the dog "Turd" for short.

Then Mom decides that enough is enough and makes everyone quiet down, and announces that she will name the dog. She decides to call it "Sweetie Pie" and "Sweetie" for short. Greg is really angry at this decision because the dog is a male and "Sweetie Pie" is a dumb name anyway, but he has no way to argue his case with Mom. So the dog's name is Sweetie Pie.

Eventually Sweetie Pie develops a large affection for Mom even though she always ignores him and Dad is jealous of this, so he tries to spend a lot of time with Sweetie, and Sweetie doesn't like this. Eventually, Sweetie also develops a large liking for Greg's bed, but not Greg himself.

Book Series

• 1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Avaiable
• 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules!: Available.
• 3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw: Coming Soon.
• 4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Spag Union: Future.
• 5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg's Last Year of Middle School: Future.

The Cheese

Supposedly one of the most important parts of the book, the Moldy Cheese has appeared the year before the diay starts being written in a basketball court in the middle school. The Cheese is a moldy and slimy mess, a "thing" around which great disgust revolves. No one dares to touch the thing until someone trips and brushes "it" with his finger. He then starts the Cheese Touch, which is basically the same thing as the game Tag or Cooties, where one passes the Cheese Touch to another person, and you can protect yourself from it by crossing your middle and forefinger. The person with the Cheese Touch eventually tags someone, who moves in the summer directly before the diary starts being written to another state in the country, so he takes the Cheese Touch with him. No one touches The Cheese until the end of the book, where a group of terrorizing cronies named the Herbie Reamers (the ringleader's name is Herbie Reamer) forces Rowley to eat half of The Cheese. They were about to force Greg to eat the other half but Greg comes up with the lamest and funniest excuse ever.

References

• School Library Journal, March 2007. Hola 83674937675__853_567392-4578_58
• Publishers Weekly, 2007.

Diary of A Wimpy Kid

External links

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Greg Heffley's Journal Grade 7
• Greg Heffley at BlogSpot
• Name of the three books
• the 4th book is about