Jeff Kinney remembers when his goal was to write a book, one big book, for grown-ups.
“I thought I’d write about a year in the life of a typical kid,” says the children’s author known to millions for his “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. “I’d write one book that was between 700 and 1,000 pages long and I’d look at every aspect of childhood within that time frame. Furthermore, I was writing for the humor section of the bookstore, not the middle grade section.”
Kinney spoke to The Associated Press recently as he looked back at the decade since “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” made him one of the world’s most popular writers. The first 11 novels have sold more than 180 million copies and the series has been the basis for four movies, with the latest, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul,” scheduled for May 19. Abrams Books told the AP on Wednesday that the 12th book, coming Nov. 7, will be called “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway.”
The misadventures of middle schooler Greg Heffley, sketched in readers’ minds as a skinny boy with a round head and precious few strands of hair, have stood out in two ways in the book world — they appeal equally to girls and boys (sometimes known euphemistically as “reluctant readers”), and they have consistently sold more than 1 million copies in hardcover, an achievement few books attain anymore thanks in part to the rise of e-books and the fall of the Borders superstore chain.
