The Book Addict Reviews: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Genre: Young Adult, Middle Grade, Friendship, Humor
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Goodreads | Website
Rating: 3 stars
Borrowed from the library.

In A Nutshell:
I liked the book and particularly liked the format of the book.  I am not sure that I liked the use of label of wimpy when in reality Greg seem to me to be an average middle school student. 

Review:
Greg Heffley is starting a journal--not a diary.  He is very clear that he will not be writing a "'Dear Diary' this and 'Dear Diary' that." (p.1).  Instead, Greg chronicles his life as a middle school student.  He is not the captain of the football team or class president.  He is just a normal kid who figures he ranks around 52nd or 53rd on the popularity list in his school.  But throughout the year, he tries a few different schemes to improve his popularity (bulking up, drawing cartoons for the school newspaper, or joining the safety patrol).  And then he writes about each of these schemes with cartoon drawings to compliment his writing. 

The format of this story really drew me in.  It felt authentic--as though it was actually written and drawn by a middle school student.  However, I did struggle with labeling Greg as a "wimpy kid."  According to dictionary.com, a wimp is a weak, ineffectual, timid person.  Greg is not a physically strong person.  But I do not know that I would describe Greg as a timid person.  He is willing to try new things.  He comes up with lots of new schemes--and actually tries them with ineffectual and admittedly hilarious results.  But I believe actually trying them takes him out of the wimpy category, and that label seems to have an unnecessary negative connotation when Greg really comes off more as an average middle school student than a "wimpy" one.

Recommendations:
I will plan to read the next in the series:

I also plan to watch the movies: