Diary of a Wimpy Kid (book)

"Diary of a Wimpy Kid" redirects here. For the series, see Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series).

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

File:Diary of a wimpy kid.jpg U.S. cover
Author	Jeff Kinney
Illustrator	Jeff Kinney
Cover artist	Jeff Kinney
Language	English
Series	Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Genre	Realistic fiction novel
Publisher	Amulet Books
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	224
ISBN	ISBN 978-0-1433-0383-1
OCLC	271303785
Preceded by	N/A
Followed by	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2008)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (also known as Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal) is a realistic fiction novel written by American author Jeff Kinney, the first book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and is followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. The book acts as a journal and follows the adventures of seventh grader Greg Heffley. The third book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, was released on January 13, 2009, and the fourth book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, came out on October 12, 2009. The fifth is due to come out in 2010.

The book was originally on FunBrain, but when it was adapted into a print book, Jeff Kinney decided to split it into a series.

The series has stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for children's books for 18 weeks as of May 19, 2009.

Plot summary

The first book begins with an introduction to help Greg Heffley and his middle school life. Despite the title, and not trying to sound like a wimp, Greg tries to explain how the book is a journal and not a diary. This book takes place during his seventh grade year (according to FunBrain). The book also explains the cheese touch early on. It is similar to the game of tag in which the person who touched the cheese (a moldy piece of Swiss cheese left on the blacktop) had to get rid of it by touching someone else (It's like "The Cooties"). In the first half of the book, events such as Halloween, learning to know how to wrestle, and acting in the play of The Wizard of Oz are told. During trick or treating, Greg and Rowley are ambushed by a group of teenagers. Then they take refuge at Greg's grandmother's house and taunt the teenagers from there. On Christmas Day, it shows Greg getting very few presents that he would like, including an 8x10 picture of his uncle Charlie. Rowley bought Greg a Big Wheel. Greg then throws a football at the front tire of the bicycle while Rowley is riding the Big Wheel and he breaks his arm. At school, Rowley is surrounded by girls who encourage him to get well which makes Greg mad. Later, he and Rowley join the Safety Patrol whose responsibility are walking home morning kindergartners. However, Rowley gets kicked off the Patrol because Greg was chasing the kindergartners with a worm. When Rowley gets kicked off, Rowley starts to ignore Greg. Slowly, they begin drifting apart and Rowley starts hanging out with Collin Lee and when he went to Rowley's house, Greg retaliates by spending his night at Fregley. That turns into a disaster as Fregley goes crazy on jellybeans and Greg runs away in the middle of the night. Nearing the end of the school year, Rowley's comic strip is entered into the school's newspaper. Greg tells Rowley to list him as the co-creator because it was his idea and joke punchline. Rowley then denies that Greg had anything to do with it. They get ready to fight but are then interrupted by the teenagers they taunted on Halloween. They showed up to pay them back and they force Rowley to eat the cheese, but Greg gets away by saying he's allergic to dairy products. The next day, Greg explains that he removed the cheese, but the way he worded it, it sounded like Greg touched the cheese. For the rest of the year, Greg was in seclusion from everyone else and he and Rowley became friends again.

Characters

• Gregory Heffley is the main character. He is the "wimpy kid" and the owner of the journal/diary, plus he is the narrator of the series. Greg is sometimes selfish, ignorant, naive, and vain. Greg is also thinking up scams from time to time. Greg takes advantage of his rather dim-witted and naive best friend Rowley Jefferson. He can be a nice person sometimes. His brother, Rodrick, loves to pick on, humiliate, and overall make Greg miserable. He also has a younger brother named Manny who is spoilt by his parents, a dad who loves exercising, but loves junk food, and an over-caring mom.
• Manny Heffley is Greg's little brother, who calls Greg "Bubby." Manny is very small and has an overbite. Manny has an art for getting away with anything because he is the smallest, the "baby" and because he can use his cute looks to get out of trouble. He is never punished for anything. Greg also says that Manny is an excellent climber and sneak. Most of the reason that he angers Greg is that he gets more rights than Greg used to have at Manny's age (three), for instance, Manny brings his "playing gear" to church so that Manny will be comfortable. When Greg complains about Manny's mischief, he responds, "I'm ownwy thwee!"("I'm only three!). He begins to call Greg "ploopy" in The Last Straw.
• Rodrick Heffley is Greg's older brother who loves bothering Greg. He is the drummer of a band called "Löded Diper". Greg and Frank hate Rodrick and his band, but Mom loves it. He worships someone called Bill Walter and once showed a short-time interest in shrunken heads.
• Susan Heffley is Greg's mother. Susan is a middle class mom who is caring, but sometimes overprotective. She is a good mom and wife, but usually embarrasses her children and husband (usually Greg or Frank). However, she is nearly always cheery and accepting. She also likes to call Greg "Honeybunches," which nearly always embarrasses Greg. The fact that she never removes her glasses bears a resemblance to Jane Drabble, another cartoon character. Greg calls Susan "Mom" whenever he writes about her in his diary. Greg often shows evidence that Susan doesn't understand kids at Greg's age. In the Funbrain.com book version, her name is Anna.
• Frank Heffley is Greg's long lost son. Frank likes sports, writing and "building character." Frank hates video games, heavy metal,and Rodrick and his friends Bill and Ward, in general. Frank likes doing outdoor projects and weight lifting and many other "manly things." Frank also tries to encourage Rodrick, Greg, and Manny to do "manly stuff" with him, especially since Greg was younger and Frank tried to encourage him to work out so he could have big muscles, only to have Greg respond with, "Muscles are gross!" Frank also has extremely high cholesterol but is a junk food addict and his favorite hobby is creating his Civil War diorama, moving around the plastic soldiers to make it as accurate as possible, painting new guns, constructing the background or the battlefield, etc. But his brother and Greg's uncle, Joe, thinks they're all just "toys," as he says: "Nice TOYS, big brother!" in Rodrick Rules. He keeps the diorama locked in a workroom in the basement and only ever lets Greg get inside a couple of times when he showed him the "latest improvements". Frank never really lets anyone see the diorama, and Greg caught him telling Manny about a "monster" in the workroom to make sure that Manny stays away from that part of the basement. Greg calls Frank "Dad" whenever he writes about him. He is always encouraging Greg to do something active, which almost never works.
• Rowley Jefferson is Greg's best friend who usually helps with Greg with his schemes. He is always seen with his mouth agape, we only see Rowley's mouth closed when he is shown asleep (with Greg struggling to get to sleep in that picture) in the online book version. He was also seen with a square-shaped head. Rowley took over the "Zoo-Wee Mama" comic strip, which was Greg's idea that he stole. Rowley is dim-witted and naive. Greg frequently exploits this naivety to get him to do things like ride down a hill while Greg throws a football at him and to carry him up the hill after school. He is also obese. He has very overprotective parents, who usually try to stop Rowley from doing anything they find dangerous or inappropriate. His real name is Rowan.
• Fregley Farley is Greg's neighbor and an all-around strange boy. Fregley exhibits his strangeness by having a "secret freckle" and playing a game called "diaper whip." Fregley also has a liking for stuffing dirt in his ears and beating kites with a stick. He likes hanging out on his front lawn. He also likes wrestling, playing twister, and speaking in a made up language. Fregley also is not allowed to have sugar, because he gets "crazy".
• Uncle Charlie is Greg's uncle. He is described by Greg as very nice and will get him whatever he wants as a present, but he always screws up with bad presents such as a Barbie doll (which caused Greg to get a plastic shoe stuck up his nose and had to go to the emergency room a couple weeks later) and a laundry hoop, which is supposed to make putting away your dirty clothes "fun."
• Mr. Underwood is Greg's Phys Ed teacher who is really tough on the boys. The wrestling unit assigned by Mr. Underwood caused Greg to get a weight bench, which, in turn, made Greg's dad assume that Greg was into doing "manly things".
• Collin Lee is Greg's back up friend. When Greg and Rowley split, Rowley played with Collin. Greg couldn't use Collin, so he (not wanting to) hung out with Fregley instead.
• Grandma is Greg's fun grandmother. She keeps lots of junk food like chips, soda, cake, ice cream, etc. Greg shows clear evidence that Manny is her favorite grandson. Greg used to be her favorite until he was six years old when he made a sign saying "I hate you Gramma" because she wouldn't let him have any ice cream before dinner. She has that sign framed, and she shows it to her visitors, saying: "And this is what my wonderful grandson GREGORY made for me." She is said to make really awesome hot chocolate.
• Holly Hills is a very sweet and kind girl who Greg has a crush on. Greg thinks about her all the time. In one of the books (The Last Straw, Page 186-187) Greg is at church and Holly Hills is sitting two rows behind him. He suddenly turns around and says "Peace be with you Holly Elizabeth Hills" Holly was a bit shocked though. And then (on the next page) he imagines what he is going to say to her when he calls her,his main one was "Hi Holly, this is Greg Heffley.You may remember me from a very special 'Peace be with you'".With that, Holly blushes. Strangely enough, in The Last Straw, Greg hears that Holly and her friend will be going to the rollerskating rink, and Greg sees this as his chance to talk to her. But Greg had recently lost one of his contacts and has to wear his glasses, even though the lenses are about 3 inches thick. At the rollerskating rink, Greg learns walking with skates on is difficult and ends up on his butt scooting to Holly, who is currently sitting out due to couples skating. When Greg finally gets up to Holly she says "Isn't your name Fregley?" Greg is then surprised and while hes sitting in shock, Holly's friend come up to her and take her back out to the rink, now that couples skating is over. This incident made Greg lose interest in Holly.

External links

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid on FunBrain.com