When I picked up this book at the BEA, Melissa pounced on it and said, “You got the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid!” “I did?” “There are two other books…” “There are?” “And they’re great!” “Well, that’s good!”

As you might be able to tell, I have spent the last several decades rereading Betsy-Tacy, Anne of Green Gables and the All-of-a-Kind Family books for the 500th time, not straying far into the New Book aisle at the bookstore.  Which is one of the reasons why I have become a reviewer for this fine website, to get me out of that rut!

When I was at BEA, I was entirely overwhelmed and had no actual idea of what places I should go or people I should see, so I just started to get in any line I saw, because at the end of it there was a free book and an author wanting to sign it for me!  The first time I did this, at the head of the line I got Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw with Jeff Kinney, pen poised, asking me if the “Kymm” I wanted the book signed to was my daughter.  “Nope, it’s ME!”

Now, my OCD doesn’t usually let me start a series of books with any book other than the first, but trust me, it doesn’t matter a bit with Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I didn’t feel as though I was coming in in the middle of anything.  It’s the story of Greg Heffley, the titular wimpy kid, his parents, older brother Roderick, baby brother Manny, and best friend Rowley.  All Greg really wants to do is sleep, eat sweets and play video games, which seems like a reasonable goal to me, but his parents want him to do things like “get good grades” and “play soccer”, but Greg is pretty difficult to improve.  Will military school help?  Uh-oh…

This book is, to put it mildly, hilarious, with funny drawings and in an extremely realistic boy’s voice.  It is completely from Greg’s point of view, without any winking at the audience.  I really need to go back and read the first two books in the series, because Greg and his somewhat unusual world-view is definitely someone that I want to know better.