Latest news with #WimpyKid
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author talks upcoming projects
PLAINVILLE, Mass. (WPRI) — 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author Jeff Kinney is booked and busy. In addition to writing best-selling novels, Kinney and his wife Julie are in the process of transforming downtown Plainville with the hopes of bringing their community together. 'I think it's really important to take care of your own backyard,' Kinney said during a live interview on 12 News at 4. The project, called 'Plainville Square,' will bring a beer garden, restaurant and village green to the downtown area. Rhode Island brewery The Guild is partnering with the Kinneys to create the food and beverage garden that is slated to open in the fall. 'Especially in Massachusetts, the towns were built up around factories and things like that, and then those jobs left, but the people are still there,' Kinney explained. 'They want that feeling of community, and we have to reimagine what our downtowns look like.' MORE: 'Wimpy Kid' author, RI brewery to open beer garden in Plainville Kinney also shared more about upcoming projects in the 'Wimpy Universe' including new movies that will be released on Disney+. You can watch the full interview in the video above. Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Homework, bullies and pets: Jeff Kinney on why kids love his books
Most authors are secretive about their works-in-progress. Jeff Kinney? Not so much. In the first few minutes of our interview, he's sharing his laptop screen and showing me pages of notes for his next book. If you were a nine-year-old, this would be like Leonardo da Vinci saying, 'Check out these sketches I've been doodling for that Sistine Chapel gig...' Kinney is a rock star among pre-teen readers. Heck, even kids who don't read still read Kinney. His Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the fourth bestselling book series of all time – we're not just counting kids' books, we're talking all books. There are 19 official entries, and Kinney has penned spin-offs as well as a series of feature film adaptations. Then there's Hot Mess, the live stage show the author himself performs, which will bring him to Australia in May. Loading The Wimpy Kid books follow Greg Heffley, a young teen chronicling his high-school misadventures. His family are classic comic foils – mean older brother Rodrick, annoying younger brother Manny – but there's genuine affection given to characters like Greg's bestie Rowley. The series is written and drawn in a deliberately simple style, printed on the kind of lined paper you'd find in a homework notebook. It all creates the sense that any kid could have made this – and you could too. 'If a kid picks up one of my books and opens it, they say, 'Oh, this? I could do this. This looks like fun.' And that's how reading should be. I think the handwritten font is friendly, and the cartoons are fun. But I think that the humour is the thing. If the books weren't funny, I don't think I'd have 19 in the series. I pride myself on the joke writing and I think kids respond to that.' I'd heard that an average Wimpy Kid book contains around 300 to 400 jokes. 'Yeah, now it's more like 1000,' he says. That's when he shares his desktop, navigating past the kinds of files you wouldn't show a journalist ('Ticketmaster password', 'Health log') to 'Book 20 ideation'. Here it is, the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Apple Notes form. It's a brainstorm of thoughts and joke ideas spiralling out from the concept of 'cake'. The sheer number of gags contained on each of these pages makes 1000 jokes per book seem like child's play. Kinney's global success means that he travels a lot, and he often wonders what it is about his writing that translates well in places with very different cultures from the US. 'I think it's that the types of things I'm writing about are familiar to every kid, like having parents and homework and bullies and pets,' he says. 'This is just the common language that we share. We went through the same things, you know? And we laugh at the same things. So especially in a time of real political upheaval here in the US, it gives me a lot of hope that there is so much commonality between kids around the world.' Loading Kinney grew up reading the likes of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. 'I could see the protagonists as a reflection of myself. Those were kids just like me. And it never occurred to me at that time – nor until much, much later in life – that every kid doesn't get that experience of validation.' He hopes that kids see themselves in his writing, he says. In keeping with that spirit, I've outsourced some of my questions to a class of grade threes and fours at a local primary school. Number one: Are Kinney's characters based on real people? 'They are. Every one of the Heffleys is an exaggerated funhouse mirror version of somebody in my own family,' Kinney says. 'The rest of the characters, not so much. They're mostly fictional. But Greg's friendship with Rowley is based on a friendship I had growing up. 'I didn't have a lot of friends, but he and I had each other, and we built this kind of world together. Even though Rowley's not based on him, the relationship is based on my friendship with my best friend.' Question two: Which of his books is his favourite? 'There's a book I wrote called Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, and I wrote it in about a month and a half, just before the pandemic struck. I wrote it really fast, and I'm really proud of it because I think it's fun and funny and sort of fresh.' Question three is so broad that most adult journalists would avoid it, but it's also one that every kid with a pen in their hand would like an answer to: Why did you start writing, Jeff Kinney? 'I felt like being a cartoonist was what I was born to do. I just needed to figure out a way to get my cartoons into print somehow.' Kinney spent almost a decade writing his first Wimpy Kid book, all the time with an adult audience in mind. Yes: one of the world's most successful kids' books began as a series for grown-ups. 'I thought I was writing something that was looking back on childhood. In those eight, nine years I was working on it, I was thinking of this as something more like The Wonder Years or A Christmas Story, where it was childhood seen through the lens of an adult's backwards-looking perspective.' Loading At the time, he was working for a website with a large audience of schoolkids. When he began posting Wimpy Kid content there, it struck a chord. 'It started to get a lot of traction online before I ever showed it to a publisher.' I don't know what Kinney's publisher would think of him sharing the plot of a book that's yet to be released. I know what an actual fan would think, since my own nine-year-old enters the room during our interview. It's testament to Kinney's connection with his readers that he instantly welcomes the newcomer into the conversation, asking for feedback on some of the novel's plot points and even revealing the cover art of the book. That kind of generosity is partly how his upcoming live show came about. In recent years, his book signings have attracted queues three hours long, so he and his team transformed them into interactive lines full of activities to do while waiting. That grew into a full-scale interactive stage show – first came Diper Overlode, a rock concert with 'live performers and fog machines and laser lights'. Now he's bringing his new show to Australia, adapted from his most recent book, Hot Mess. 'The conceit of the show is that … I'm quitting the book business and we're opening a restaurant, and I need to hire waiters and staff and chefs and everything like that.' It seems unlikely that Kinney will be quitting the biz for real any time soon. But you have to wonder why someone who has sold 290 million books wants to get up on stage and clown around.
The Age
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Homework, bullies and pets: Jeff Kinney on why kids love his books
Most authors are secretive about their works-in-progress. Jeff Kinney? Not so much. In the first few minutes of our interview, he's sharing his laptop screen and showing me pages of notes for his next book. If you were a nine-year-old, this would be like Leonardo da Vinci saying, 'Check out these sketches I've been doodling for that Sistine Chapel gig...' Kinney is a rock star among pre-teen readers. Heck, even kids who don't read still read Kinney. His Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the fourth bestselling book series of all time – we're not just counting kids' books, we're talking all books. There are 19 official entries, and Kinney has penned spin-offs as well as a series of feature film adaptations. Then there's Hot Mess, the live stage show the author himself performs, which will bring him to Australia in May. Loading The Wimpy Kid books follow Greg Heffley, a young teen chronicling his high-school misadventures. His family are classic comic foils – mean older brother Rodrick, annoying younger brother Manny – but there's genuine affection given to characters like Greg's bestie Rowley. The series is written and drawn in a deliberately simple style, printed on the kind of lined paper you'd find in a homework notebook. It all creates the sense that any kid could have made this – and you could too. 'If a kid picks up one of my books and opens it, they say, 'Oh, this? I could do this. This looks like fun.' And that's how reading should be. I think the handwritten font is friendly, and the cartoons are fun. But I think that the humour is the thing. If the books weren't funny, I don't think I'd have 19 in the series. I pride myself on the joke writing and I think kids respond to that.' I'd heard that an average Wimpy Kid book contains around 300 to 400 jokes. 'Yeah, now it's more like 1000,' he says. That's when he shares his desktop, navigating past the kinds of files you wouldn't show a journalist ('Ticketmaster password', 'Health log') to 'Book 20 ideation'. Here it is, the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Apple Notes form. It's a brainstorm of thoughts and joke ideas spiralling out from the concept of 'cake'. The sheer number of gags contained on each of these pages makes 1000 jokes per book seem like child's play. Kinney's global success means that he travels a lot, and he often wonders what it is about his writing that translates well in places with very different cultures from the US. 'I think it's that the types of things I'm writing about are familiar to every kid, like having parents and homework and bullies and pets,' he says. 'This is just the common language that we share. We went through the same things, you know? And we laugh at the same things. So especially in a time of real political upheaval here in the US, it gives me a lot of hope that there is so much commonality between kids around the world.' Loading Kinney grew up reading the likes of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. 'I could see the protagonists as a reflection of myself. Those were kids just like me. And it never occurred to me at that time – nor until much, much later in life – that every kid doesn't get that experience of validation.' He hopes that kids see themselves in his writing, he says. In keeping with that spirit, I've outsourced some of my questions to a class of grade threes and fours at a local primary school. Number one: Are Kinney's characters based on real people? 'They are. Every one of the Heffleys is an exaggerated funhouse mirror version of somebody in my own family,' Kinney says. 'The rest of the characters, not so much. They're mostly fictional. But Greg's friendship with Rowley is based on a friendship I had growing up. 'I didn't have a lot of friends, but he and I had each other, and we built this kind of world together. Even though Rowley's not based on him, the relationship is based on my friendship with my best friend.' Question two: Which of his books is his favourite? 'There's a book I wrote called Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, and I wrote it in about a month and a half, just before the pandemic struck. I wrote it really fast, and I'm really proud of it because I think it's fun and funny and sort of fresh.' Question three is so broad that most adult journalists would avoid it, but it's also one that every kid with a pen in their hand would like an answer to: Why did you start writing, Jeff Kinney? 'I felt like being a cartoonist was what I was born to do. I just needed to figure out a way to get my cartoons into print somehow.' Kinney spent almost a decade writing his first Wimpy Kid book, all the time with an adult audience in mind. Yes: one of the world's most successful kids' books began as a series for grown-ups. 'I thought I was writing something that was looking back on childhood. In those eight, nine years I was working on it, I was thinking of this as something more like The Wonder Years or A Christmas Story, where it was childhood seen through the lens of an adult's backwards-looking perspective.' Loading At the time, he was working for a website with a large audience of schoolkids. When he began posting Wimpy Kid content there, it struck a chord. 'It started to get a lot of traction online before I ever showed it to a publisher.' I don't know what Kinney's publisher would think of him sharing the plot of a book that's yet to be released. I know what an actual fan would think, since my own nine-year-old enters the room during our interview. It's testament to Kinney's connection with his readers that he instantly welcomes the newcomer into the conversation, asking for feedback on some of the novel's plot points and even revealing the cover art of the book. That kind of generosity is partly how his upcoming live show came about. In recent years, his book signings have attracted queues three hours long, so he and his team transformed them into interactive lines full of activities to do while waiting. That grew into a full-scale interactive stage show – first came Diper Overlode, a rock concert with 'live performers and fog machines and laser lights'. Now he's bringing his new show to Australia, adapted from his most recent book, Hot Mess. 'The conceit of the show is that … I'm quitting the book business and we're opening a restaurant, and I need to hire waiters and staff and chefs and everything like that.' It seems unlikely that Kinney will be quitting the biz for real any time soon. But you have to wonder why someone who has sold 290 million books wants to get up on stage and clown around.
The Citizen
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Wimpy Kids musical's a treat
Based on the 250 million-selling Jeff Kinney novels, anyone who has read the books or streamed the adaptations will feel right at home. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Musical isn't just good. It's seriously fantastic. As far as family entertainment goes, little can top this show. It's a sixty-minute romp, simultaneously snackable and moreish. Because Greg Heffley comes to life, just a few metres away from young, and a little bit older, fans. If you have not seen it, book your tickets now. The show is an hour-long, but somewhat shortened version of the 120-minute musical. But like condensed milk, it's sweet and oh so yum. Nothing's lost, but audiences have everything to gain. Based on the 250 million-selling Jeff Kinney novels, anyone who has read the books or seen some of the streaming adaptations of the stories will recognise many of Greg's major life moments in the production. There's the 'cheese touch', weird kid Fregley and the cartoon competition with the Zoo Wee Mama dispute between best friends Rowley and Heffley. Audiences have everything to gain Director Vicky Friedman and showrunner Daphne Kuhn have created a gem. It must have been tough, though. There are two sets of casts, comprising 16 kids each, plus actors Sarah Richard and Sechaba Ramphele, who are the common denominators and play Heffley's parents and teachers. 34 people to manage is no joke, yet the choreography, the performances, the singing… it's all top drawer. ALSO READ: 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Musical' Set to Rock Sandton From the moment they sat down, it was excitement and anticipation for my kids. As the lights dimmed and Heffley shared that his journal wasn't a diary, their gaze remained fixed on the stage. For a five and seven-year-old used to fast-moving games on devices or running around in muddy puddles, such undivided attention for sixty minutes is unusual. But that's how engaging the score, the script, and the performances were. Engaging script and performances Afterwards, the pair wanted more copies of Wimpy Kid books. And over lunch, they started reading the instalments we bought. On the way home, in the car, the phrase 'this is not a diary, it's a journal' went on repeat between the two. Back at home, instead of asking for anything else, they were buried in books. That's the beauty of the Wimpy Kid series: the cartoons make it accessible to kids of any reading level, and the musical brought it all to life. In turn, it sparked a greater desire to read more. Kevin Del Aquila's script, together with Alan Schmukler and Michael Mahler's music, never veers from the spirit of the books. The storytelling is superb. The magic is in the performance. Friedman and Kuhn's casting was impeccable, and there's not a single performer whose star turns needed to be carried by their mates at any time. Collectively, they pulled off numbers like In The Middle Of It All and Animal Heart with what would be complex choreography for a kid, exceptionally. The tunes are sticky, and the dream sequence of Animal Heart was my 7-year-old's favourite moment in the show. For the 5-year-old, Fegley's strangeness was hilarious. Fabulous storytelling Eye contact and audience engagement, drawing both young and older people into the narrative, were seriously well done. Comedic timing, another significant challenge for any performer, was pulled off well. The American accents, nobody skipped a beat in the show we saw. Greg Heffley's quest for popularity in Middle School is a universal story that everyone can resonate with in some aspect or another. There are a lot of life lessons squashed inside it all, but not the prescriptive sitcom kind. Instead, the familiarity of Heffley's challenges, from sibling rivalry through to the eccentric and popular kids at school…we've all been there, and our kids must still go through it or, depending on age, are wading through it all as we speak. Wimpy Kid, The Musical runs until 4 May at Theatre on The Square in Mandela Square, Sandton. If you miss it, you'll be sorry. Now Read: Louis Khoza: Turning township hustle into artistic purpose
USA Today
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Exclusive: Jeff Kinney donates 20,000 books a month ahead of 20th 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid'
Exclusive: Jeff Kinney donates 20,000 books a month ahead of 20th 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' Show Caption Hide Caption Jeff Kinney plays Wimpy Kid trivia with USA TODAY's Clare Mulroy. Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, faces off in a trivia challenge with USA TODAY's Clare Mulroy. See how well he knows his series. A lot has happened in the 18 years since the first 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid.' There's been a pandemic, huge jumps in advanced technology and new even popes. Through it all, "Wimpy Kid" main character Greg Heffley has remained perpetually sardonic, perpetually a middle schooler. Readers have had a new "Wimpy Kid" book (sometimes two) to look forward to every year since the original published in 2007. Now, in the months leading up to 'Partypooper,' the series' 20th installment, author Jeff Kinney has something up his sleeve. Kinney shared exclusively with USA TODAY that he's gifting 20,000 books a month until he hits 160,000 total to kids across the country in partnership with nonprofit First Book. Jeff Kinney and First Book to donate 160,000 books It's a big year for Kinney and Abrams Books, which publishes 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid.' Not only is book 20 on the horizon, but they're also approaching 300 million copies sold. To celebrate, 160,000 total copies will go to underserved communities through First Book, an organization Kinney has worked with throughout his career. The nonprofit is dedicated to breaking educational barriers in low-income communities, particularly through access to literature. Kinney grew up in 'a house full of books,' and said he didn't realize how privileged he was at the time. "I love their mission and their philosophy," Kinney says, pointing out that First Book takes care to provide diverse books so many kids are represented on the page. "A lot of kids who they serve have never owned a book of their own. You can see it when a kid is given a book that might not have a book in their house, they can't believe that they get to keep this book and that it's theirs. Sometimes, they'll sort of reflexively hug it to their chest because they treasure it." Kyle Zimmer, president and CEO of First Book, remembers "my own sons laughing out loud when they read Jeff's books," she told USA TODAY in a statement. "That's the kind of joy and love of books that we want every child to experience," she continued. "We're thrilled to hold hands with Jeff and Amulet/Abrams Books and build on our longstanding partnership.' Zimmer hopes that as kids share books with their siblings and friends, it'll 'build a nation of readers and the literate workforce employers need.' 'This is critically important because boosting our nation's reading scores starts with boosting kids' access to terrific books with stories that spark their interest in reading,' Zimmer said. Educators and volunteers who work at schools, early childhood programs, afterschool programs, health clinics, faith-based programs or community organizations where at least 70 percent of kids come from low-income families are eligible to become First Book members and can sign up at More 'Wimpy Kid' celebrations are coming in 2025 'Partypooper' centers on Greg's birthday, a very ''Wimpy Kid' version' of a birthday, Kinney says. Greg thinks his family is preparing for a surprise party, but they've actually forgotten it altogether. After the story goes viral and Greg's parents get 'shamed" on social media, Greg decides it's his opportunity to cash in and leverage the best birthday ever. In addition to touring, Kinney is planning a special surprise school assembly for select schools around the country. It'll start 'really dry,' with an actor pretending to educate kids about proper care of library books, Kinney says. They'll hold up damaged copies of 'Wimpy Kid' books, brushing them off as 'worthless, anyway.' And just when the kids start to squirm (or maybe riot), Kinney will pop onstage armed with a giant cake and books for an impromptu 'Wimpy Kid' party. 'I hope it doesn't backfire, the kids don't rebel and I hope that it's a good surprise that I'm there,' Kinney says, laughing. New graphic novels for kids: 'Cartoonists Club' by Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
