The series I am reading is Diary of a Wimpy kid by Jeff Kinney. I hear a lot about this book, and remember seeing a lot of kids get into this series. Now that I am actually reading the books, I think it is really funny and creative especially for the elementary school age group. I love how the format is in a diary form and hearing about this one boy’s life at school and at home. There are parts where I am feeling bad for this kid because of all this crap he has to go though with his family and school. Like how his older brother treats him and always getting away with it. As well as his baby brother, who just gets all the attention from the parents, but then again, it does have some comic relief to it. When I think of who would like this series, I would think maybe like 4th or 5th grade because it is right when they are about to start middle school, with a lot of comic relief. Hopefully the kids will understand that their middle school wont be exactly how it says in the book, but maybe learn some things through this kids stories in his diary. The central characters are of course the narrator, Greg Heffley, Rowley is the best friend, Manny, is his little brother, Rodrick, is the older brother, and of course, Greg’s parents.
When I think of some assumptions about children in this book, I would have to say there are some obstacles when going through junior high. Yes, there will be some bullies. Maybe not bullying you, but someone else. You will also have your embarrassing moments, but that is life! Obviously, this book makes Greg get embarrassed a lot in this book, but it is definitely over exaggerated and would be pretty hard to have the life of Greg at school. When I think about how this series could be used in a classroom, maybe I would let my students keep journals of their life, and draw pictures and such. They can make it their story, or just make it up. I would let them have a lot of freedom with the project. They could decorate their journal the way they want and draw pictures the way they want. Then maybe at the end of the year, I will tell students to pick one day out of their journal/story and then I will make one big journal story with every one of my students day in it to create a brand new story. Then we can see every student’s creativity in one book. I really like this series so far, like I said before, I have heard a lot about these books and already loving every page. I believe a lot of kids would love this series because of its humor and creativity.