PW Children's Bookshelf
The fact
that Jeff Kinney failed in his attempts to get his college newspaper comic
strip syndicated in the early 1990s proved extremely lucky for today's young
readers. Some years later, the cartoonist refocused his creative energy and, in
1998, began jotting down ideas for a book, which would become Diary of a
Wimpy Kid. Six years later, Kinney began posting daily installments of the
story on educational game site Funbrain.com. After working on the book project
for another two years, the author finally landed a multibook contract with
Abrams's Amulet Books imprint in 2006.
Young readers quickly embraced this endearingly oblivious middle
schooler. Soon after its April 2007 release, Diary of a Wimpy Kid became
a New York Times bestseller, eventually reaching the #1 spot. Seven
Wimpy Kid titles later, the series currently has more than 120 million copies
in print worldwide and is published in 83 countries. Hard Luck, the latest
installment in the series, was the overall bestselling book in the U.S. in
2013, with three million copies sold between its November 5 pub date and the
end of the year.
Greg will leave his home turf for the first time when Kinney takes
the boy and his family on a road trip in Diary of a Wimpy Kid #9, due
from Amulet on November 4. "I wanted to do something completely different,
and decided to take the characters out of their element, which is freeing, but
a little risky for me creatively," said Kinney. "I usually don't know
what a book is going to be about until I finish writing all my jokes for it. I
write them in a dissociated manner—each completely independent of the
others—and then figure out what the novel's theme is, based on the jokes. This
time I feel a bit out of my comfort zone, since I have a theme up front. I feel
as though I'm writing right-side up rather than my usual upside down."
Kinney explains that book #9 is still very much a work in
progress, and—in another first—he himself left home to focus on writing jokes
for the new novel. "I've never before done this when I'm writing a book,
but in March I took a trip to Puerto Rico," said the Massachusetts-based
author. "I need about 350 jokes to start writing a book, and I wasn't
close to that point, so I holed up in a nice place where the weather is warm
and I could write outside—day and night." The setting provided just the
right inspiration: Kinney noted that he writes one or two jokes per day on
average, and "four if I'm on a roll," yet his island retreat yielded
20 jokes a day, which, he added, "was really great."
The author is contracted for a 10th Wimpy Kid title, but—happily
for fans—he said, "I don't anticipate ending the series any time
soon." A motivating factor for Kinney is his books' renowned ability to
hook reluctant readers, which he finds heartening.
"I love hearing from parents and teachers that my books
turned kids on to reading," said Kinney. "But it wouldn't feel very
gratifying to hear that kids had read only my books, and then stopped reading.
The most important thing to me is that the Wimpy Kid books spark kids' interest
in reading, and then they move on to bigger and better things. I saw this with
my own sons, who read my books and then quickly moved on to Harry Potter and
Percy Jackson. It's so great to think that kids might become lifelong readers
because of my series."
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