Book Review: Diary of Wimpy Kid (Double Down)

Eleven books into the Wimpy Kid series and Jeff Kinney still has the ability to make my inner middle school spirit laugh. Interest in the series has significantly dropped with my sixth grade students. Only one student ordered the book via our Scholastic account (two, if you count me, ordering one for my sixth grade son). Years ago, I could count a dozen orders or so.

But with Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down, Kinney continues to be funny and insightful to the inner lives of a middle school boy, and all sorts of pop references dot the story. It opens with a reference to The Truman Show movie with Jim Carrey, and a character who slowly becomes aware that others are viewing/reading their lives. Greg wonders if anyone is watching him life unfold.

Yes, Greg, we are.

I chuckled at the ways in which Greg finds a cool place in the Speech/Language pull-out class (because that was me in elementary school — working on my S sounds), and the taking up of French Horn to join the school band (in order to get invited to a party). Lots of sight gags and funny moments are in Double Down.

Look, it’s no literary work of art. It’s entertainment. My son read the entire book in one short session on the couch. I read it in an afternoon between doing dishes and the clothes wash. We were both entertained, and I see now that my son has dug out his collection of Wimpy Kid books to re-read (again). He reads deeper and much more complex stories than Wimpy Kid, but he still finds pleasure in the world of Greg Heffley, as imagined by Jeff Kinney.

Books are like that.

Peace (in the kid),
Kevin

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *