I can answer the question in the title of this small book for you rather easily enough: Jeff Kinney is the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. If you teach in an elementary/middle school, or have young readers at home, ’nuff said. This short biography — Who is Jeff Kinney? — gives more details about Kinney’s life as a budding and aspiring cartoonist/novelist, and how his hard work and vision for story eventually paid off.
Who Is Jeff Kinney? is a quick read, but it could be a solid companion piece for those readers who want to know more about how Kinney and his series became the blockbuster that it is. Kinney seems like a regular guy who loved to draw, but realized that his drawing ability would not likely get him far. He turned that weakness into a strength with his books, though, and got a few breaks along the way.
What I found most fascinating is how Kinney worked hard for a handful of years to gather together stories and drawings, with no publisher in sight, and when he was done, he had a mountain of ideas from which to work from (which is why he can publish a book a year now). Also, the first iteration of Wimpy Kid were aimed at adults, not children (I’d love to see some of those) but the publisher who took a chance on Kinney (all the way to the bank) saw a market for young boy readers, so Kinney reworked his ideas for a younger audience.
This biography is written by … his younger brother, and so it is rather flattering (not that I have any dirt on Kinney or anything … he seems like a genuinely nice guy and who couldn’t like a guy who used his fortune to open a bookstore in his hometown?).
Peace (in the bio),
Kevin