Need some fun books for the warm weather season? My recommendation for this summer, or any summer, is the children’s book series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. Yes, I am bringing back the elementary school days. I can not describe how much I love these books and how I will be more than excited to continue reading them as each new one comes out until my last day on this Earth. This may be a very specific recommendation, and I am sure many people know without looking too far into the series whether it is for them or not. But I will always recommend these books for laugh-out-loud fun, summertime reading. The books circle around the main character, middle-schooler Greg Heffley, who documents his various escapades involving a dysfunctional family, laughable school social rules, and dealing with his crazy friend Rowley Jefferson all in his series of diaries… or I mean, journals. What’s great about these books is I think most of us can relate to the situations Greg gets into… and then cringe and/or laugh at how he handles them. What’s also fun is that you can read an entire book in about an hour, so you can really get a whole lot of reading done in the matter of a couple weeks. I believe that’s why a lot of kids used this as a way to get their reading prizes in elementary school. Something about it is perfect for summer, maybe because it is easy reading, and because a lot of the books take place in warm weather. It’s nice to chill back with a cool lemonade and a graphic novel to kill an hour in the heat. They are great escapism stories that take you back to, yes, the unpleasant memories of pre-teenhood, but also the good memories of that period as well. I find it nice every now and then to take a break from more serious reading and look back and remember how ridiculous everything really was during that stage in our lives. Self-made rules in school popularity systems, the horrors of having to get off the screen and go outside, the second-hand embarrassment from simply being out with your family… things that seemed so much like life or death back then, but are completely silly after you have taken a step back. What’s fun as well is the different themes in each book, and how hilarious it is to see Greg and his friends and family dealing with all these crazy situations. My personal favorites are the family road trip ones, since I find Greg’s family the funniest part of the stories. The Long Haul, The Getaway, and The Deep End are some of my absolute favorites from the series. I especially love when the family has to work together, despite usually being at each other’s throats. A complaint people sometimes have with these books is that nothing ever changes, and Greg really never learns anything from book to book, so you can start reading anywhere in the series and not really miss a thing. But that’s why the books I just mentioned stand out to me, because the family overcomes their differences (in quite over the top and hysterical endings) and meet the obstacles together, sometimes even miraculously managing to have a fun time doing it. You certainly don’t see that in the earlier books, so that has felt like a nice development to me. Another standout in the series for me has always been The Ugly Truth, which focuses mainly on the stress of growing up and preparing to enter the next stage in life (which is funny since Greg canonically never gets any older). Again, a relatable topic, and also plenty of opportunities for comical situations, including awkward talks with older adults in the family, a school assignment where they have to take care of an egg as if it is their child, and an overnight school “lock-in” party, which to this day, is the sequence out of any single Wimpy Kid book where I have laughed the hardest on almost every page. To put it all simply, middle school kids have juvenile humor, but when it is written well, it will make a woman in her twenties nearly keel over with laughter. If I could go into every single book right here, I would, but we’d all be here for a while, when I simply wish to give a fun summer reading recommendation. Though I am not opposed to reviewing every single book in the series someday down the road. But if you slightly remember these books from your childhood, I highly encourage you to take a look back and relive the enjoyment during this summer season. And if you have never read them before and are curious, I promise you they will be worth your time if you are looking for ridiculous laughs, colorfully crazy characters, and questionable main character handlings of middle school situations. Like this old bookmark I got in 4th grade says, spend your summer reading with Greg! Unlock the inner middle schooler and awkward pre-teen that still hides within us all and exercise those demons through some hearty laughs.
Also, it looks like I hit all the classics, except for A Series of Unfortunate Events.
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