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PLAINVILLE - Last Friday, Meredith Earnest made the trip from Quincy so her sons and their friends could participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony for the town's newest business, An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Cafe.

An Unlikely Story is the brainchild of "Diary of Wimpy Kid" author and Plainville resident Jeff Kinney and his wife, Julie. The couple turned the old Falk's Market at 111 South St. in downtown Plainville into the bookstore and café, with a function space and conference room on the second floor and plans for some kind of office space on the third floor, in addition to studio space for the world famous children's author. Their hope is to build on the site's past as a community gathering place.

Earnest said she plans on making a monthly trip to An Unlikely Story because there are so few local bookstores and her sons all love reading, especially Kinney's books.

"I brought five boys with me today who all love books," she said Friday, adding that it's difficult to find books that inspire boys, but Kinney's books get her three sons excited about reading.

The young readers all had the chance to meet Kinney at Friday's ceremony. Earnest's son Ethan, 9, said he was star struck.

"His books are good," Ethan said, bragging that he's read all nine of Kinney's works -- the author is working on his tenth book.

Store manager Deb Sundin was busy at the cash register as visitors buzzed about the new store.

"It's very exciting," she said. "It's really great to see it all come together."

With wooden floors recycled from an old Nutty Buddy factory, white Edison lights strewn throughout the open beamed ceilings, flying books and Harry Potter brooms racing overhead, and old mill fixtures turned into furniture, there is something new to explore at every turn in An Unlikely Story -- everything with a story to tell, as the Kinney's intended.

Jeff Kinney addressed the crowd and said his intent was to create something that would last and where people can gather.

"When I used to be a software programmer I used to walk by a church every day. And every day that I walked by I'd say, 'You know what? The church is going up and it's going to be there for centuries. And this thing that I'm working on, if you unplug the computer, there's no evidence of anything that I do," Kinney said. "So I always wanted to build something. This really is an exciting day to have a place for people to gather. It's a big day for us."

He thanked everyone involved in the project, from the selectmen and contractors to the architect and his wife, Julie. Kinney gave a heartfelt thanks to former lawyer Dave Simmons who passed away last year.

"He was very passionate about this project," Kinney said. "This building will be dedicated to him."

Lead architect Stan Kubinski of Bergmeyer said Kinney was wonderful to work with and he enjoyed working out all the details, such as using rain catchers to collect water from the roof in the parking lot.

"All of the furniture has been re-purposed," Kubinski said.

The architect said he hopes the community gets full use out of the bookstore; that it will become a hub of activity for the town, from hosting reading clubs to people waving flags out in front during downtown parades.

"I salute Jeff and admire his courage to take this project on and encourage others to follow in his footsteps, even if you feel a little wimpy," Kubinski said.

If the reaction of 16-year-old Plainville resident Katherine Flynn's reaction is any indication, the goals in building the bookstore have been met.

"I'm really excited about this place," she said. "It's really awesome. I love books and this is awesome for the town and community. It's really cool."

An Unlikely Story will be open Monday through Wednesday from 9 a.m.-7 p.m., Thursday through Saturday from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. and Sundays 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Visit the store's website at http://www.anunlikelystory.com

Heather Harris can be reached at hharris@wickedlocal.com. Follow her on Twitter @heatherharrisWL.

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PLAINVILLE - Last Friday, Meredith Earnest made the trip from Quincy so her sons and their friends could participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony for the town's newest business, An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Cafe.An Unlikely Story is the brainchild of "Diary of Wimpy Kid" author and Plainville resident Jeff Kinney and his wife, Julie.

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Click here for teacher resources, games, activites, and more.

Jeff Kinney

Cilck me to watch all of the book trailors, and tips from the author!

Biography Jeff Kinney is an American children's author, actor, producer, cartoonist, and game designer, most famous for the book series Diary of a Wimpy KidAttended the University of Maryland.Kinney's birthday isFebruary 19th, 1971.He is now 46.Jeff has a wife, and two kids,He owns his own book store called An Unlikely Story.

Fun FactsJeff Kinney created a children's website called PoptropicaThe books are currently available in 61 editions in 52 languagesHis books are read by more than 70,000 kids a dayWon the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award for Best BookDiary of a Wimpy Kid was made into a seris of movies

Click the picture to play on Poptropica! Jeff Kinney's website.

Click on me to get to know me better!

Do you want to talk to Jeff Kinney? Write him a letter and mail it!Jeff Kinneyc/o Amulet Books115 W. 18th Street, 6th FloorNew York, NY 10011

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Click here for teacher resources, games, activites, and more. Jeff Kinney Cilck me to watch all of the book trailors, and tips from the author!

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Wimpy Kid's best-selling author and movie producer Jeff Kinney on comedy, competition and feeling like a fraud

Jason Grow for TIME

Yours is a small genre--children's book cartoons. Do you have a great rivalry with the underpants guy?

I take comedy very seriously, and I feel very competitive. But not with Captain Underpants in particular.

Maurice Sendak said he didn't intend to write for children. Did you?

I labored for eight years thinking I was writing a book for adults that was a nostalgic look back on childhood. Then my publisher informed me I'd written a children's book.

How did you take the news?

It took me a few minutes to get over the shock, but my sensibilities are G-rated anyway. Some...

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Wimpy Kid's best-selling author and movie producer Jeff Kinney on comedy, competition and feeling like a fraud Yours is a small genre--children's book cartoons. Do you have a great rivalry with the underpants guy? I take comedy very seriously, and I feel very competitive. But not with Captain Underpants in particular.

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Jeff Kinney wears his pants properly now, not with the waistband high, up near his belly button. He is no longer skeletal. He certainly doesn't carry his patrol badge everywhere.

And when he strolled into his old elementary school gymnasium on Tuesday as a multimillionaire author, not the Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing goofball he once was, he was greeted like a celebrity. More than 200 children lost their minds, screaming and waving fans decorated with covers of his books.

"Now that is so cool," he said as the cheering wouldn't stop.

Kinney returned to Potomac Landing Elementary School in Fort Washington, Maryland, to launch "Double Down," the 11th book in his "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, a global publishing phenomenon that has sold 180 million copies in 52 languages. Kinney earned nearly $20 million last year, according to Forbes magazine, making him the second-highest-paid author in the world, in between James Patterson and J.K. Rowling.

His new book, out for mere hours, is already the top-seller on Amazon.

Kinney, 45, built his not-so-wimpy empire - the books, three movies, a musical headed for Broadway and an upcoming animated TV series - by mining the high jinks and awkwardness of his childhood. Greg Heffley, Kinney's main character, does and says things a lot like he did.

With the children sitting on the gym floor where Kinney used to shoot hoops, Kinney told stories that have made their way into his books, including the time he hid in a swimming pool bathroom and wrapped himself in toilet paper because it was cold.

"Can you tell why I called the book 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid'?" Kinney asked them.

Much howling.

"Most things in the books happened in truth or in spirit, but mostly in spirit," Kinney said in an interview. "I try to put it all through the fiction blender and get to the essence of the thing and hopefully get a joke out of it."

What has made Kinney so successful, say booksellers and publishing experts, is how unusual the series was when it launched in 2007. The books are Greg's diaries. The pages are lined like a notebook with handwritten entries and cartoon doodles - the writing sets up the joke, delivered in the doodles.

To readers, especially boys, that didn't look like any of the books at school.

"My 8-year-old son hated to read," an Amazon customer wrote in a review of the first book. "No matter how much we worked with him he just wasn't interested." But Kinney's book was, the reviewer said, "the miracle we've been looking for."

It wasn't just the format that was appealing. It was the tone.

Greg is bumbling. He is not particularly popular. But he's mouthy in a mostly harmless way.

"Let me just say for the record that I think middle school is the dumbest idea ever invented," Greg writes on the third page of the first book. "You got kids like me who haven't hit their growth spurt mixed in with these gorillas who need to shave twice a day."

Mary Alice Garber, the children's department buyer at Politics & Prose bookstore in Northwest Washington, expects plenty of excitement for Kinney's new "Wimpy Kid" installment.

"We have the same track record with him that we do with J.K. Rowling," she said.

Jacob Baxter, 10, one of the children in the Potomac Landing gym, explained his obsession with Kinney in a letter he wrote him in September.

"I can read your books in 2 days," he wrote, adding that he had finished all the books, "so I started all over. ... You are my favorite author."

In many ways, Kinney's success is a total accident.

He grew up reading the comics in The Washington Post every morning with his father, a retired military analyst who worked at the Pentagon. At the University of Maryland, Kinney studied computer science and drew a comic for the student newspaper called "Igdoof," about an awkward freshman with three strands of hair, like Greg.

That was the life Kinney saw for himself - newspaper cartoonist. That life never materialized. Kinney took a job at a health-care company as a computer programmer, and in his spare time he began working on a graphic novel of sorts - for adults - featuring some dorky but lovable kids. He spent four years filling his journal with doodles and one-liners. He wound up with 1,300 pages.

In 2004, he began publishing the diary entries on Funbrain, a website he worked for creating games and puzzles to help children learn. Greg had a cultish following. Hoping to find a publisher, Kinney went to Comic-Con, an annual convention for comic book writers, gamers and graphic novelists. There, he handed his book to Charles Kochman, a well-known editor of graphic novels and comics at Abrams Books.

"I just instantly loved it," Kochman said. "There was nothing like it out there."

He saw it as a humor book in the same vein as "The Wonder Years," the hit coming-of-age TV show starring Fred Savage that ran on ABC from 1988 until 1993. But when Kochman pitched it to his colleagues, they suggested he try it as a kids' book. Kinney was dumbfounded. A kids' book? It never occurred to him to a) write a kids' book or b) that what he had already written was for kids.

But looking back, Kinney realizes that not writing the book for kids is actually what made it so popular with kids. He wasn't moralizing or writing down to them.

"For me, the priority was always humor," Kinney said.

And kids could see their own lives in Greg's.

"The kids might know they aren't as bad as him, but even if they are, then it's comforting," Kochman said. "This is not a happily-ever-after kind of thing. Authenticity really matters to kids."

All kids. Though Kinney's early readership skewed male, Kochman said about 45 percent now are girls. "I think girls find the books to be a good cue into what boys think," Kochman said. "It's funny to them. The humor is universal."

And it all comes back to Fort Washington, to the house on a hill where Kinney grew up within walking distance of Potomac Landing Elementary. His best buddy back then was Ryan Coudon. They tinkered with computers, programming them to alphabetize their homework. They played Dungeons and Dragons. They built forts.

"I guess we were kind of nerdy," Coudon said. "But we thought we were cool."

Though they lost touch in their middle and high school years, Coudon has followed Kinney's career with awe. And the books brought them back together. Kinney even invited Coudon's family to one of the movie premieres.

Coudon has watched his own childhood unfold in Greg's diaries - and again on Tuesday at their old school. Coudon attended the event with his wife. Kinney told the story about the time he rolled a soccer ball at the wheels of Coudon's bike while he was riding it. Coudon fell. Bones were broken.

"I'm here to say, 'I'm sorry,' " Kinney said into the microphone. "Is your wrist working now?"

Much howling.

Kinney left the gym with his old buddy, walking past the library, swapping stories that might one day wind up in a book.

That time a teacher opened his car door and it fell off.

That time he used mirrors to shine the sun in kids' eyes.

Kinney now lives with his wife and two sons in Plainville, a small Massachusetts town near Rhode Island, where he recently opened a bookstore. After his return to the D.C. area - he also did an event at the Library of Congress - he will be plugging his books in England, Germany, India, Israel, Korea. But he's taking Fort Washington with him.

"When I think of the wimpy universe, I think of that school and the hill that I lived on," Kinney said in the interview. "That's my frame of reference. It serves as the campus for all of my stories."

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A homecoming for once-wimpy kid Jeff Kinney

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Jeff Kinney wears his pants properly now, not with the waistband high, up near his belly button. He is no longer skeletal. He certainly doesn't carry his patrol badge everywhere. And when he strolled into his old elementary school gymnasium on Tuesday as a multimillionaire author, not the Dungeons-and-Dragons-playing goofball he once was, he was greeted like a celebrity.

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On the site of the historic Falk's Market, Julie and Jeff Kinney have created a cornerstone in downtown Plainville with an indie bookstore, a café and an event space. An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café is a beautiful new community gathering place where you can meet amazing authors, enjoy breakfast or lunch, or relax with your new book and a beer (or glass of wine).

Previously owned by Merrill Falk - a beloved Yankee general store owner - the market served as a nerve center for the town. Taking care to honor the building's history, we've made it our mission to rejuvenate this sense of community. Falk's Market, which was originally constructed across the street, was built in the mid-1800's and it housed numerous businesses since its inception. Part of our unlikely story is our evolution from general store to pharmacy to tearoom to restaurant...back to general store and now into bookstore and café. We invite you to please visit us, explore, and learn about the rest of our unlikely venture.

Directly upstairs to An Unlikely Story is the Second Story. The Second Story hosts community events including readings, workshops, yoga, karaoke, wine tastings and game nights for families to name just a few.

Our hope is that everyone who visits An Unlikely Story will find it to be a special place, and that we'll be able to help you use this space in a way that allows you to create happy memories here.

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On the site of the historic Falk's Market, Julie and Jeff Kinney have created a cornerstone in downtown Plainville with an indie bookstore, a café and an event space. An Unlikely Story Bookstore and Café is a beautiful new community gathering place where you can meet amazing authors, enjoy breakfast or lunch, or relax with your new book and a beer (or glass of wine).

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Jeff Kinney's Cartoon Class - How to draw Greg Heffley

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Born on February 19, 1971, Jeff Kinney is an American writer whose talents are not limited to writing alone. He is also a cartoonist, producer and game designer in addition to being the bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Jeff grew up in Fort Washington, Maryland, United States where he attended the Bishop McNamara High School. As a kid fond of reading, Jeff delightfully read books of authors such as Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Piers Anthony, and J.R.R. Tolkien. He went on to study at the University of Maryland at College Park during the early 90s. It was during his student life at the University that Kinney generated the idea of and created Igdoof, his famous comic strip which appeared in the campus newspaper, The Diamondback. The success of Igdoof encouraged Jeff to decide on being a cartoonist. In 1995 Kinney moved to New England.

Jeff started working on The Diary of a Wimpy Kid sometime during 1998, however, it wasn't published until the spring of 2007. The second book of the series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules came out in 2008 followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book in the same year with a revised and expanded version in 2011. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days both got published in 2009. Like 2009, Jeff published two more books of the series in 2010, entitled, The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth. So far the last book of the series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever came out in 2011. The series gained quick popularity and attained the number one position on important charts with a worldwide sale of 42 million copies up till 2010.

The Wimpy Kid series was adapted to screen with the release of Diary of a Wimpy Kid on March 19, 2010 by 20th Century Fox. Jeff contributed to the movie as an executive producer. With mixed reviews from critics, the film did well on the box office. A second film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules followed with its release on March 25, 2011. The third movie of the series is expected between March and April of 2012.

In addition to topping the list of the New York Times bestselling author, Jeff Kinney's name also appeared on the Times magazine's list of 100 Most Influential People in the world. He won the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award in 2009. The award is proof of Kinney's immense popularity among young readers since it is voted for by children.

Preparing for another upcoming book, Jeff Kinney also works as an online game developer and designer. Amid his creations is the famous children's website Poptropica.com. He resides in Plainville, Southern Massachusetts with his wife, Julie and their two sons, Will and Grant.

Buy Books by Jeff Kinney

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Born on February 19, 1971, Jeff Kinney is an American writer whose talents are not limited to writing alone. He is also a cartoonist, producer and game designer in addition to being the bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

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Jeff Kinney "Igdoof" University of Maryland School Newspaper circa 1992-1993

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Jeff Kinney "Igdoof" University of Maryland School Newspaper circa 1992-1993

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1) Gymkana is the oldest student club on campus

Dr. David A. Field founded the University of Maryland Gymkana Troupe in 1946. The Troupe's goals were to provide healthful recreational activities to students, promoting the sport of gymnastics, providing entertainment for their audiences and acting as "Ambassadors of Goodwill" for all those that they encountered. Since the first performance in Ritchie Coliseum on January 10, 1947, for the halftime of the Maryland-George Washington basketball game, Gymkana has used gymnastics to promote its message and inspire others.

2) Gymkana Has Performed On Some of the Biggest Stages

Gymkana is no stranger to big audiences. The Troupe routinely provides entertainment at sporting events, award ceremonies, and conventions and has performed in many venues including Madison Square Garden and the Houston Astrodome. Gymkana has also appeared in television commercials and was featured as a semi-finalist on the show America's Got Talent in 2011.

3) Gymkana Toured Extensively to Perform for Military Servicemembers

Starting in 1951, the Troupe began making multiple trips to United States military bases around the country and internationally each year. The tour began with the Troupe flying west to Mountain Home and Boise, Idaho as well as Great Falls, Montana to perform for service men and women stationed there. The next year, Gymkana embarked on a 5 day tour of bases in the Mid-Atlantic area during the Thanksgiving holiday, followed by Winter break performances at military bases in Burmuda. By Spring Break, the Troupe was once again shipping out, this time touring bases around Iceland. In 1954, yet another tour lasted for a week and reached 7 different army installations and over 9000 service men and women. In honor of Gymkana's continued dedication to entertaining servicemen, the USO presented the Troupe with an award of recognition in March of that year. In 1955, the Troupe made its final stop in the Azores, providing entertainment for troops stationed at Lajes Field on the island of Terceira.

4) You May Recognize This Gymkana Alum's Artwork

Recognize the artistic style of the comic above? The comic "Igdoof" ran in the University of Maryland Newspaper, the Diamondback, in 1992 and 1993 and became popular enough on campus to generate its own market for t-shirts and other merchandise. The creator of the comic strip was Jeff Kinney, now the author of the well-known books series, Diary of A Wimpy Kid. In addition to being author of the most famous comic strip on campus, Kinney was also a member of the Gymkana Troupe during his time at College Park. In the above installment of "Igdoof," Kinney used this duel-status to publicize Gymkana's annual Home Show with a few shameless plugs.

5) The Troupe Has a Long History of Promoting Healthy Living

Throughout the 70 year history of Gymkana, the Troupe has acted as "Ambassadors of Good Will", by nature of the influence of the coaching staff and integrity of its members; however, in 1985 the Troupe began to serve as an official outreach program of the School of Public Health, formerly known as the College of Health and Human Performance. Through the partnership of Dean John Burt and Director Dr. Joseph Murray, the Troupe received the support of the college. It was at this time that the troupers first instituted the Gymkana pledge to live drug, alcohol, and tobacco free, which is signed annually by every member of the Troupe. Through the solidarity of this pledge, each member the Troupe serves as a positive example of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

7) Many Gymkana Members Join With No Prior Gymnastics Training

"No Experience Necessary" has been a foundational part of Gymkana's philosophy since the beginning. All active members are University of Maryland students. All active members pledge to be 100% drug, alcohol, and tobacco-free. Beyond that, the Troupe provides a home for students of all athletic ability levels to learn gymnastics and acrobatics.

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7 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Gymkana

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Dr. David A. Field founded the University of Maryland Gymkana Troupe in 1946. The Troupe's goals were to provide healthful recreational activities to students, promoting the sport of gymnastics, providing entertainment for their audiences and acting as "Ambassadors of Goodwill" for all those that they encountered.

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The parallels between unassuming middle child Jeff Kinney and his star-crossed fictional anti-hero Greg Heffley are too arresting to ignore. With his preppy shirts, earnest, toothy grin and diffident manner, Kinney - a 41-year-old father of two and self-confessed former computer games addict - was probably never picked first for the school football team.

Heffley, a luckless video games fanatic frozen in cartoon time as the simplistically drawn adolescent protagonist of Kinney's phenomenally popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, is similarly flawed and - however hard he tries - rarely penetrates beyond the outer fringes of the in-crowd.

Belittled by his cooler, tougher elder brother Rodrick, frustrated by his mollycoddled younger brother Manny and ignored by the class catch Holly Hills - all under the watchful eye of his well-intentioned mother and ineffectual father - he is stuck in an eternal battle for recognition in a world full of more significant, less gauche rivals.

"My books wouldn't have existed without the upbringing I had or without the family that I have," concedes Kinney on the eve of the publication of the seventh book of the series, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel.

"I had a very normal, very typical American childhood. My father worked for the government at the Pentagon and my mother was an educator, so we had a very average upbringing but that's helped me in my writing because I'm writing about ordinary things.

"I had an older brother, an older sister and a younger brother, and though I look back fondly on my childhood I think that when you've got four siblings sharing the same resources and a single kids' bathroom, it's going to get a little tense at times. "I was the odd man out with my siblings and maybe I brought that on myself. I liked to think that I was smart and I think I needled my brothers and sisters, so we had two camps.

"The conflicts tended to be me against the three of them. My younger brother was the new cute one and my two older siblings were the teens, so I was somewhere stuck in the middle.

"I never thought of myself as an attention-seeker but I probably was pretty jealous that my younger brother got a lot of it. So, in a way, all the experiences are somehow related to my own childhood and I would say that the DNA of my childhood appears in these books."

This universally recognisable family struggle, combined with the visually accessible, part comic strip, part diary style has so far produced worldwide sales of 75m books in 41 languages and the sixth book in the series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, was the biggest and fastest-selling children's book of 2011.

"I used to think that the books were too American to work outside the US," says Kinney, who despite the books' massive success still works as creative director of an online games portal, Poptropica.com. "But these books aren't really about America. They're about a childhood, so that's why they work.

"A lot of characters in children's literature are heroes - Greg is not a hero. He's full of imperfections, and having a flawed character is a little bit more interesting than having a character that always does the right thing.

"I've enjoyed lots of books where the character is heroic, but with the title alone I wanted to tell kids that Greg is not the most outstanding or admirable character. There is something a little bit different about him.

"The main theme is pre-adolescent angst. I wanted to write about a time in people's life where there's a physical mismatch between kids. Kids come in all shapes and sizes, especially in this time period, and that plays itself out in the social interaction. I just thought this time period was really ripe for comedy.

"People ask me, 'Is Greg really you?' and I say that Greg is smarter than I was as a kid in some ways, and maybe less smart in others. But I think that growing up, nobody would want to have those years recorded, and that's what's happening to Greg and he doesn't come out looking so good."

So was Kinney's own adolescence as excruciating as Greg's?

"It was scary for me, and that middle school time between primary school and secondary school is by its very nature a short time that almost feels like a quarantine, and it felt like a scary place to me; from the safety of primary school to the really wide-open, prison-yard feel of middle school."

The storyline in the first book follows Greg's attempts to elevate his lowly status by launching his own middle school cartoon strip; a narrative mirrored by Kinney's own professional development.

"In middle school, I started to draw and my pencil sketches were huge. They were these 4ft by 3ft drawings and I got a lot of attention for that, so that was very validating. But I didn't start cartooning until I was in college.

"I worked for about three years trying to get my college cartoon syndicated, and I failed in that endeavour. I realised that the problem was that I couldn't draw well enough. My drawings weren't professional grade so I decided to come up with this character who wrote and drew his own journal entry, Greg Heffley, and that's where Diary of a Wimpy Kid was born. I worked on the books for about eight years in total before a publisher showed some interest."

The books have been made into three films, which have collectively made £125m globally.

The irony of cultivating international success from parochial failure isn't lost on Kinney. Recognition has created its own challenges, most notably for his own family; having to promote his work means time spent with his wife, Julia, and their two sons, Will, 10, and Grant seven, is more precious than ever. "It's been a developmental process for all of us. There's been extraordinary strain placed on my own family and myself for all the travel and work that comes with this, but there are also opportunities now that didn't exist before.

"We've met three US presidents including, Bush and Obama, and been on movie sets, but the nice thing is, we live in a town called Plainville, Massachusetts. It's a small town of about 8,000 people and it's actually really easy to be in small-town mode. That's our real life and all of this is just kind of make-believe.

He is at his happiest when he gets home after a working trip: "When I can have just those ordinary experiences and those days with my family where there aren't any other obligations. The best way to write the books is to just live my life normally. I'm a cub master in the cub scouts and I coach my kids' sports teams, and that's when the ideas flow.

There are plus sides for his family too, including major playground kudos for his sons. "They've enjoyed being able to brag about going to Vancouver and being on the movie set," admits Kinney grudgingly, "but it's not a big part of their day-to-day life. And my older one's breezed past my books now anyway. He moved from Captain Underpants to Harry Potter and then the Percy Jackson books so he graduated past my stuff very quickly."

Kinney's books have also become an unlikely spark in igniting reading interest among book-shy pre-teen boys, an achievement recognised by his place in Time magazine 2009 top 100 influential people poll.

"I wasn't trying to turn kids into readers or anything like that," says Kinney, audibly blushing at the compliment. "I was just aspiring to entertain, so if kids walked away with a laugh then that was mission accomplished for me.

"When I found out about the Time magazine thing, I thought someone was playing a practical joke on me, especially as at the time I only had three books out, but I think that the point they were trying to make was that my books were turning a lot of kids into readers. I like playing that part in kids' lives."

So what does the future hold for Kinney and his two-dimensional alter ego, Greg Heffley?

For Kinney, a JK Rowling-like genre shift into adult fiction is not an option. "I've learned to accept that I'm a children's writer, even if it's not what I set out to become. It's what I should have been all along and I'll stay in this role as long as I'm a writer.

"I'd like to come up with another series and I'd like to think that I'm capable of creating more than one thing."

And Greg? "There's plenty more Wimpy Kids to come, so I think Greg will be forever frozen in pre-adolescent anguish."
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel There will be a Wimpy Kid Fun Zone (including signing opportunities with Jeff) raising money for Save the Children in Westfield, Shepherd's Bush, London from 12 - 6pm on Sunday 2 December. Tickets available from WHSmith, Westfield is published by Puffin, £12.99. To order a copy for £10.39, including free UK p&p, go to theguardian.com/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days is out on Blu-ray and DVD Topics

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Jeff Kinney: 'People ask me, is Greg really you?'

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The parallels between unassuming middle child Jeff Kinney and his star-crossed fictional anti-hero Greg Heffley are too arresting to ignore. With his preppy shirts, earnest, toothy grin and diffident manner, Kinney - a 41-year-old father of two and self-confessed former computer games addict - was probably never picked first for the school football team.

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CLINTON, Md. - Visitors to Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, can see a whitewashed fence like the one that Tom Sawyer tricked his friends into painting for him in the novel.

In Clinton, students and teachers at St. Mary's School of Piscataway learned that their Catholic school and parish in the Archdiocese of Washington has a special connection to a modern children's classic, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" by Jeff Kinney.

In early November, the day after his 11th and newest book in that series, "Double Down," went on sale, the best-selling children's book author visited St. Mary's School and shared his memories of going to Mass and attending teen dances at the parish while he was growing up and was something of a wimpy kid himself.

"It's so cool to be here. Believe it or not, 30 years ago I used to attend dances here," Kinney told a school assembly of 180 prekindergarten through eighth-grade students. "I tried break dancing" here, he said, before asking kids if they knew what that dance move was.

He and his friend used to think that when people at Mass there shared the sign of peace, it sounded to them like, "peas be with you," which made them laugh. "I got in trouble lots of times for laughing in church," Kinney confessed.

But his biggest revelation came moments later.

"The 'Cheese Touch' started at St. Mary's. It's one of the reasons it's important for me to come here," Kinney said. "Right outside, under the basketball hoop was a piece of cheese. None of the kids would touch it. You can tell people you went to school where the 'Cheese Touch' started!'" he said, as the kids looked out the window. "Beware of cheese!" he added.

The "Cheese Touch" refers to a famous scene in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and the movie series it inspired, when the main character, middle schooler Greg Heffley and his best friend, Rowley, try to avoid a mysterious piece of cheese "that has been sitting on the blacktop since last spring." After a kid named Darren touched it with his finger, Kinney wrote, "that's what started this thing called the Cheese Touch. It's basically like the cooties. If you get the Cheese Touch, you're stuck with it until you pass it on to someone else."

The Nov. 2 visit marked a homecoming for Kinney, who said he wanted to start the world tour for his new book by coming home to Maryland.

Kinney went to Eugene Burroughs Middle School in Accokeek, and then attended Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, where he graduated in 1989. He later earned a degree at the University of Maryland in College Park, where he was a cartoonist for the Diamondback campus newspaper and created a goofy character named "Igdoof."

"This is where I went to church, in this hall," he told the students at the St. Mary's assembly. "A lot of the jokes I got for 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' were from my childhood growing up. A lot of it is from here. ... In my mind, the 'Wimpy Kid' world is this world. When I write, I think about where I grew up."

Kinney said he got into the first and only fistfight of his life as an eighth grader, when he and his friend got into a disagreement, and the kids around them were chanting, "Fight! Fight!" a scene that later appeared in the book and movie with the two boys squaring off awkwardly, not knowing how to fight.

Then there was the time his older brother woke him up in the middle of the night and told him he had slept through the whole summer and it was time for the first day of school. Young Jeff Kinney then went downstairs at 3 a.m. and made breakfast for himself, as if it were a school day, and his father caught him and asked what he was doing.

Kinney also told the students about how he was a "terrible" member of his swim team and once hid shivering in the locker room, wrapping toilet paper around himself to warm up. All those incidents also later happened to Greg in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."

Kinney was inspired by comic strips such as "Calvin and Hobbes" and "The Far Side," and he dreamed of being a cartoonist someday. "As a kid, I fell in love with the comics," he said. His University of Maryland character Igdoof once made a surprise appearance in the panel of the comic strip Big Nate, after he had corresponded with that strip's creator, Lincoln Peirce.

"That's the moment I knew I had to be a cartoonist," Kinney said.

After college, Kinney was not able to become a syndicated cartoonist, but he kept a journal of funny things that happened to him over the years. "Funny things happen every day," he said. He converted those ideas into an online comic strip, and later a book publisher asked him to rework them as a children's book.

"Diary of a Wimpy Kid" was published in 2007, and his books have been best-sellers since. "I feel really lucky it worked out," said Kinney, who noted that his success came after receiving a lot of rejections from publishers.

In an interview with the Catholic Standard, Washington's archdiocesan newspaper, Washington, Kinney - who now lives in a Massachusetts town with his wife and two sons in middle school - said that in New England, people often find community life in their towns, but when he grew up in Maryland, his Catholic parish and Catholic high school were places where he found a sense of community.

"It was a huge part of the fabric of our lives growing up," Kinney said, noting that he had spent many hours at St. Mary's Parish over the years, as a member of the teen club there and later as that group's president. "It's very meaningful for me to come back to the school."

In the past decade, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books have been published in 42 languages, and a special milestone happened last year, when the Latin version was presented by the priest who translated it to a smiling Pope Francis at the Vatican.

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Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.

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'Wimpy Kid' author pays tribute to Catholic roots during Maryland visit | The Compass

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CLINTON, Md. - Visitors to Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, can see a whitewashed fence like the one that Tom Sawyer tricked his friends into painting for him in the novel. In Clinton, students and teachers at St.

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In this interview, Jeff Kinney talks about the research he did for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, his inspiration for Greg's character, and his own memories from middle school and his career as a writer.

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Jeff Kinney at Home: Kinney Discusses the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Books | Scholastic

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In this interview, Jeff Kinney talks about the research he did for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, his inspiration for Greg's character, and his own memories from middle school and his career as a writer.

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TeachingBooks.net is delighted to welcome award-winning author Jeff Kinney as our featured guest blogger.

Each month, we ask one distinguished author or illustrator to write an original post that reveals insights about their process and craft. Enjoy!

The 'Ugly' in The Ugly Truth

by Jeff Kinney

Photo provided by Jeff Kinney, 2010

It was a challenge coming up with a title and a cover image for the final book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (Abrams). I always planned to call it Rowley's Revenge, so I sketched what I thought might make a good cover.

But as I reviewed the manuscript with my editor, Charlie Kochman, we realized that there wasn't a ton of Rowley in it. Furthermore, we already had a title in the series with alliterative "Rs"... Rodrick Rules. So a few months before it was set to ship to the printer, the book still didn't have a working title.

Charlie and I went back and forth with different suggestions for weeks and couldn't come to an agreement.

Finally, one day I woke up and it hit me: the title should be The Ugly Truth. There's nothing pretty about adolescence, so it seemed to fit. I called my editor that morning, and he loved it.

Now we were getting somewhere. I tweaked the drawing and sent it to Charlie.

I thought the art was good. OK, so main character Greg Heffley looked more smelly than ugly, but it had all of the right elements: Rowley, Greg, and stink lines. But my editor thought the sewer and manhole didn't say puberty; I went back to the drawing board.

Here's what I came up with next:

Not bad, but Charlie and I agreed that the picture was too literal...and too boring.

Both of us pored over the book trying to find a central image that would crystallize the theme without clonking readers over the head. We finally found what we were looking for in a sequence where Greg is suffering through the "Facts of Life" unit in his Advanced Health class.

In it there's a sequence where the teacher tells her students how difficult it is to take care of a baby, and she hands each kid an egg that they must carry around for 24 hours.

Greg completely misses the point of the exercise and can't figure out what a chicken egg has to do with a human baby. He concludes that he'd probably be getting a better education in a private school.

But the moment works: Greg isn't ready for the full download in Advanced Health, and the egg symbolizes his confusion. All I needed to do was modify Greg's pose, which was modeled after Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.

When Charlie and I saw it on the cover, we knew we had it. And that's a good feeling.
Hear Jeff Kinney pronounce and speak about his name. Access all of TeachingBooks.net's online resources about Jeff Kinney and his books. This material may not be used without the express written consent of Jeff Kinney.

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It was a challenge coming up with a title and a cover image for the fifth and final book in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (Abrams) series. I always planned to call this book Rowley's Revenge, so I ske...

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Play the beginning, then skip to 0:34 for Q&A.

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88 Total Resources 17 Books Name Pronunciation

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Hi everyone-

Here's a report of the second leg of the media tour, leading up to the grand finale.

March 13th: Robert Capron's family and mine joined forces and invited some family and friends to a special screening of the movie in New England. We had a great time, and it was great to see Robert get the praise he deserves for his portrayal of Rowley.

March 14th: Another special screening, this time for my family and friends in Virginia, near the area where I grew up. This was a special event for me, because my brother, Scott, has a song in the movie, and it was a lot of fun to be there for his song's big debut.

March 15th: Back on the road for the last week of our media tour! We started off the week in New York, where we did a "press junket." For the press junket, we sat down in front of the t.v. cameras and took interview after interview. Every five minutes or so, a new interviewer would walk in the room, sit down, and start asking questions. This went on for about six hours. It was fun, but exhausting. I don't know how movie stars do it! Zach and Robert handled their interviews like pros.

March 16th: We started our day bright and early on the Today Show. It was a blast. Al Roker immediately asked Zach about a scene in the movie where he pees on Rodrick. It was hysterical. After that, we did a few more t.v. and radio interviews. We were horsing around a lot when the cameras were on and got a talking-to from Zach's mom about "professionalism." We ended our night at a New York Rangers hockey game.

March 17th: We traveled to Stamford, Connecticut, to officially launch the Wimpy Kid Movie Diary, the book I wrote about the movie-making process. Thor Freudenthal, the talented director of the movie, came out to join us on stage and to sign posters afterwards.

March 18th: Just one day until the movie's release! We spent Thursday at Riverside Elementary in Fairfax, Viriginia. Riverside Elementary won the School Library Journal's contest and got to have a special premiere of the movie in their gym. It was a very cool Hollywood-type event, with a red carpet and everything. The school's safety patrols handled security, which I thought was genius.

March 19th: The end of the road. We all headed back home. I rode back on the plane and sat next to Robert. I knew it was the last day Zach and Robert would be anonymous. After the movie came out, they'd be stars. It was great sharing this experience with them. I'll never forget it!

March 20th: Success! The movie did really well at the box office over the weekend. Everyone is hoping this means we'll get to make a sequel. Thanks, everyone, for coming out to see the movie!

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Hi everyone- Here's a report of the second leg of the media tour, leading up to the grand finale. March 13th: Robert Capron's family and mine joined forces and invited some family and friends to a special screening of the movie in New England.

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It’s a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. This is the original web-comic version of the book that eventually became the famous book and movie series!

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Draw Diary of a Wimpy Kid with Jeff Kinney

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Visit Scholastic, the world's largest children's book publisher. Whether you need a classic kids book or classroom-proven teaching materials, discover it at Scholastic.

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney didn't grow up wanting to be a children's author. His dream was to become a newspaper cartoonist but he wasn't able to get his comic strip syndicated.

Jeff Kinney was born in 1971 in Maryland and attended the University of Maryland in the early 1990s. It was there that Jeff ran a comic strip called "Igdoof" in the campus newspaper. He knew he wanted to be a cartoonist.

However, Jeff was not successful getting his comic strip syndicated after college, and in 1998 he started writing down ideas for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which he hoped to turn into a book. Jeff worked on the book for six years before publishing it online on funbrain.com in daily installments.

In 2006, Jeff signed a multi-book deal with publisher Harry N. Abrams, Inc. to turn Diary of a Wimpy Kid into a print series. The first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book was published in 2007 and became an instant bestseller. Just a year later, more than 100,000 copies were in print in the United States alone. With each subsequent book, in-print numbers continue to grow exponentially both in the U.S. and abroad. There are now more than 290 million copies of the series in print worldwide.

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has been a permanent fixture on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The series has remained on the New York Times bestseller lists since the publication of the first book, for more than 775 weeks total, and more than 350 on the series list. The books are currently available in 84 editions in 69 languages.

Since initial publication in 2007, the series has gone on to win many regional and national awards around the globe including two Children's Choice Book Awards and six Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Book. Jeff Kinney was also named one of Time magazine's most influential people in the world.

Jeff is the creator of Poptropica, which was named one of Time's 50 Best Websites. He spent his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area and moved to New England in 1995. Jeff lives with his wife and two sons in Massachusetts, where they own a bookstore, An Unlikely Story.

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Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney didn't grow up wanting to be a children's author. His dream was to become a newspaper cartoonist!