Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Graphic Novel

This book is basically the story of a boy's first year in middle school. The book is all about Greg trying to navigate his way through his first year, including dealing with bullies and bonding with friends. The book is written in journal form by Greg, and includes cartoon-like pictures and captions on each page.

To be completely honest, I did not enjoy this book at all. I didn't like the graphic novel/cartoon format and I didn't really enjoy the story. This is the only book I read for this project that I felt this way about. However, I can see how useful it would be in a classroom to reach reluctant readers. The format is fun and the reading is easy and funny, and the content is probably very easy for young boys to relate to. Providing different genres such as graphic novels is a good way to help students learn to enjoy reading. However, I don't think I would use this book for instruction, unless I couldn't find a better graphic novel to use, since graphic novels are required under the Common Core Standards. This book is part of a series as well, making it work well with RL.3.9, the standard about comparing/contrasting books in a series.

Kinney, J. (2007). Diary of a Wimpy Kid. New York, NY: Amulet Books.