Jeff Kinney continues to generate a lot of excitement with his Wimpy Kid series of books (it helps that Scholastic is “all in” with its promotion, too). The excitement is visible at school, where I have a line of students waiting to read one of our classroom copies of the new Hard Luck. And it is evident at home, where my two youngest sons wrestle over the books. It’s not unusual to see a line of Wimpy Kids books all over our couch as my youngest reads them yet again.
I finally got a chance to read Hard Luck. It has a typical Wimpy Kid storyline — Greg is feeling socially left out and must navigate the weirdos of his world — and some very funny scenes for anyone who spends any amount of time in a school building during the day (inside jokes about the change of french fries to sweet potato fries, etc.). The writing isn’t all that deep but I suspect readers of Wimpy Kid don’t really care. They’re there for the jokes and the visual puns and the “voice” of the Greg Heffley, which Kinney has honed over the years.
I read Hard Luck in a single sitting and found it to be a nice diversionary entertainment. For many of my reluctant readers, though, Kinney is often a lifeline to books, and even if I wish the stories went deeper and even as I bemoan the influx of inferior copycat books (illustrated as comics — you know what I am talking about), I am appreciative of the fact that these kids are reading, and reading out of interest.
Peace (in the kid),
Kevin