“During his summer vacation, “Wimpy Kid” Greg Heffley, the hero of the phenomenally successful book series, hatches a plan to pretend he has a job at a ritzy country club – which fails to keep him away from the season’s dog days, including embarrassing mishaps at a public pool and a camping trip that goes horribly wrong.”
My son’s interview with the stars of the new Wimpy Kid movie went up yesterday. Today is my turn:
At the blogger press junket, the adult bloggers were invited to continue the discussion with author Jeff Kinney in a small round table setting, while the kids played upstairs. It was the mommy bloggers, and me. I love these discussions, it is not only fun to talk with a famous author, but when we are all parents, we get to tackle subjects from a different perspective. I can’t imagine how it must be on a press junket when hundreds of people ask you the same questions. We try to be a little different. I hope we succeed!
Blogger: I just want to say two days before I was invited to attend the Wimpy press day, or I even knew about the movie release, my son & I were fighting about summer reading. My son’s going into fourth grade and he picked up the Wimpy Kid book.
Mr. Jeff Kinney: Oh, really?
Blogger: You may have saved his whole educational career. So, I have to say thank you.
Mr. Jeff Kinney: Sure. Thank you for the compliment.
Blogger: And what’s next?
Mr. Jeff Kinney: What’s next for me? More books. I’m working on another one right now for the series. I’m also really excited about making an animated TV special, a holiday special, around Wimpy Kid.
And then, I don’t know. I still have a day job, and I’m working on trying to develop another television show as well.
Blogger: Maybe Wimpy Kid gets married in 10 years!
Mr. Jeff Kinney: I hope not!
(Round 2, this time I remembered to identify myself! Hey, this was my first !)
Blogger: Hi, I am Mitch from GayNYCDad.com. Two things. Did your kids always realize you were a famous figure?
Mr. Jeff Kinney: I think that it’s been a progressive experience for them, because they started off younger than the age group that reads these books. And now my older son has almost grown out of the age group that reads these books.
At first it was that the older kids in their school would say, “Hey, your dad wrote those books that I read.” And then, it kind of got to where they were in the sweet spot, in a way. And my younger son is just entering into that.
They’ve always seen me speak, and experience a lot of situations where I’m on stage. From the very beginning, my older son, he saw me in front of a bunch of preschoolers talking one time and he got up there and started talking too, because he thought he was supposed to, right? Now whenever I’m on stage, they’re happy to get up on stage too.
They’ve got that bug and I think it’s great. It’s a gift if you can make your kids comfortable in front of a crowd.
Blogger: Do you see any characteristics of your kids in your characters?
Mr. Jeff Kinney: I don’t think that my kids are like the characters in the books.
Blogger: I left it broad.
Mr. Jeff Kinney: Although L’il Cutie is modeled after my younger son all the way. As for my older son, there is a baby named Alfrendo in my sixth book, my older son named his doll Alfrendo. So that how he made it into the series.
The most fascinating information that came out of this discussion was that Mr. Kinney started writing these books as journals, with the intent that they might be a book in the humor section for adults. He did not have kids in mind. I hope we got across to him how fantastic this series is for kids, as several other bloggers also mentioned how this series helped a broad spectrum of kids to enjoy reading more because a “perfect” family is not highlighted, characters have many foibles, calamity does happen to all of us, and this is a depiction of what really happens to most if us at some point. Also, the stick figures help to keep the books interesting for kids, the diary style keeps things moving along and is captivating for the readers.
We loved the movie. We are grateful for the opportunity to have met the author and 2 of the stars from the film series, and I will use this for years to come to get my son to read more!
Visit the Wimpy Kid sites!
Create your own Wimpy Kid character from the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid at Wimp Yourself!
Like Wimpy Kid on Facebook and follow on Twitter! (And if you like to follow the hashtags: #WimpyKidDogDays)
Disclosure: We previewed the movie, interviewed some of the cast, and were fed. All opinions are always 100% our own and honest.
Paparazzi picture! Zachary Gordon (Greg Heffley), me, Robert Capron (Rowley Jefferson), and the author, Jeff Kinney!
Natasha says
That is a very awesome interview!
Mary Dailey says
I really enjoyed reading this! Well done!
Erica Hall says
My son loves these books!!