Diary of a wimpy kid: Rodrick rules. A book review by Elena Rodríguez

Diary of a wimpy kid is a book written by Jeff Kinney, an American author who has created a very famous character. In fact, there are several books about his funny stories and a film adaptation about one of them.

The book mixes blocks of texts with drawings, which makes the reading dynamic, and the format reminds me of a comic. It is recommended for children from 9 year-old forward.

The main character is Greg Heffey, the narrator, who tells us his adventures through a diary, although he prefers to call it a journal. It starts with a pretty lousy experience in a swimming team during his summer holidays and continues with a lot of humorous situations that happen to the protagonist who is always involved in some trouble. The story finishes with the consequences of the Talent Show at school.

Greg lives in an American village, whose name is not mentioned, with his nuclear family: his father, who likes to work on a miniature Civil War battlefield; his mother, who likes to watch romantic comedies, and his brothers, the youngest, Manny, who is a baby and the oldest, Rodrick, who is the drummer in a band called “Löded Diper” and knows something embarrassing about Greg, which is discovered at the end.

Rowley is Greg’s best friend and went on holiday to South America. He is talking about it all the time, as if he would have spent there the whole life and that annoys Greg. Another friend is Chirac, who had gone in June and now is back at school, his mates make fun of him as if he was invisible.

Almost day by day, Greg describes many unlucky and funny adventures dealing with school, homework, friends, family…. One of them is when he was in charge of the neighbors’ dog Princess while they went on vacation. The dog didn’t want to do her stuff out, she always made it in the foyer so Greg decided to clean up the last day, but his neighbors came back home a day before.

We can enjoy with many different situations in the book, but I think there is also a message at the end, because despite all the problems and tricks that happen between Greg and Rodrick, they finally love and help each other.

I recommend this book to people of any age. I’m sure that you will have a great time reading it!