Study Break: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Trailer
You know you want to see it …. here.
(BTW - Is the binding on these hardcovers remarkable or what? I haven’t had to tape in a single loose page despite ravenous circulation.)
Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:17 pm
I’m going to hold off full judgment until I see it, but for me, the cartoonish illustrations are part of what makes the books enjoyable. Looks entertaining though! (Which is really what counts.)
After several weeks on the waiting list, I finally read the latest book in the series this past week. Despite the fact that there were probably many people considerably younger than myself reading the copy I got, the binding and the pages still looked pretty good. The corners of the cover weren’t even bent too much!
February 27th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Okay, I obviously haven’t seen the movie, but here’s what I thought of the book. You can extrapolate to a movie review…
While I agree that this is a funny book, I’m actually pretty worried about it as something that shapes the character of children. The central problem is that Kinney has us laughing at—and so wanting more of, and implicitly approving of—the mean things Heffley says and does, and his self-serving attitudes. The question is, should tweens—whose moral character is in relatively early stages of formation—be laughing at these things? My worry here is that the book just reinforces, and subtly leads us to approve of, a certain self-centered negativity that ought to be purged of pre-teens, not anchored all the more deeply via repeated and pleasurable reinforcement.
Okay, okay, I hear the objections already: “Isn’t this just puritanical paranoia? What’s wrong with a little frivolous fun? Couldn’t the book just be like junk food, i.e., okay once in while but not as one’s steady diet?” Reply: there is nothing wrong with frivolous fun. The problem is, reading books like this isn’t frivolous fun. Think of it this way: as a parent, would you like your son to be best friends with Greg Heffley? My answer is clearly, “No.” Why? Because our friends influence who we become, the choices we make, the attitudes we take—in short, our character—and I do not want my kids to have Heffley’s character. And I don’t think it is a reach to say that the characters in books we enjoy become our friends for a season—and perhaps for a long and influential season if the book is one in a series. (Hence the disanalogy with junk food: if you buy this book for your kids, they will “eat” it all the time.) Indeed, I know people who have become more emotionally attached to fictional characters than they are to the real people in their lives. So, while it is funny, I think we also need to consider whether it is good for children.
Final objection: “This book can help non-readers—particularly boys—to become readers.” While I agree that non-readers may well read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the question is, what exactly does that accomplish? I’m skeptical that such a book is going to help any child graduate to literature that is actually worth reading. By my lights, this book is no better than a funny but corrosive TV show in that respect (though it is considerably more creative than most TV shows). If we want to help non-readers to become readers—an extremely worthwhile goal—we need to do better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid.