Do you really want your kids reading this?

With the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie coming out soon and the series growing in popularity among kids in elementary school, I decided to start this blog to share some not-so-wimpy thoughts and elicit opinions from other parents. First, I should mention that I have two boys who are in 3rd grade and preschool. I have a Christian worldview and consider one of my primary goals as a parent to instill a positive, "can do" attitude that affirms God's perspective (as revealed in the Bible). When my wife and I sat down and read book one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, we wondered how many other parents had taken the time to do this and if they read it, would they still be as receptive to this juggernaut of a book series. If nothing else, my hope is that this blog will encourage parents to read one or more of the books themselves and that this will then promote discussion among both parents and between parents and their children.

Positive Qualities:

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a witty and often humorous account of a middle school-aged boy named Gregory. The DOWK books are extremely popular among kids from 3rd grade to middle school and are part of the movement to encourage kids to read using whatever content motivates them. The author’s prologue acknowledges his gratefulness to Hollywood and it appears the series of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books will be coming to the big screen March 19th. These books were recently being sold as part of our son’s elementary school book sale fair and our 9-year old purchased the first book with his own money; primarily because so many of his friends were already reading the series. The immense popularity of these stories (#1 NY Times bestseller) suggest Gregory’s search for significance and standing in relation to family and social environment resonates with kids across different demographics and genders.


The Cons:

In many ways, Gregory represents the young postmodern or anti-hero whose center of gravity is not traditional morality, but rather how others view him (think popularity, not reputation). His pessimistic worldview and response to conflict around him are anchored in cheating, lying, theft and revenge. Gregory repeatedly seeks to advance his own interests and needs and not surprisingly bumps up against rules that have been imposed by parents, principals and teachers—all of whom are constantly ridiculed and dismissed as out-of-touch with youth-based reality. While I found the hilarity of many events age appropriate and creative (Gregory wrapping himself in toilet paper to warm up while avoiding early morning swim practice) it astounded me to see how often Gregory intentionally lies, deceives, cheats, bullies, and hurts those around him. The sheer number of cheating and lying episodes in book one is disturbing and it’s hard for me to imagine many children in elementary school having the intellectual wherewithal to continually tease apart Gregory’s intention, action and the absence of any redeeming viewpoint.

Where my view might differ (and I totally understand the divergence) from other parents is that I’m sure some see Gregory as a likeable, but misguided older version of the oft-complaining cartoon Caillou or perhaps the somewhat sarcastic Sponge Bob—neither of whom pose a huge problem when viewed in measured doses. However, I honestly felt Gregory resembled Larry the Cable Guy, a young Howard Stern or a 10-year old version of the French existentialist Sartre with a penchant for rubbing sun tan lotion on his female classmates and wasn’t afraid to admit it. Amazingly, these analogies are not far off the mark as Gregory brags about feats of rumored voyeurism in a high school girl’s locker room and then reflects on his willingness to rub down his high school crush with sun tan lotion or dry her off with a towel when she exits the pool. An Existentialist? Oh yeah, he dreams himself into France for a two-year excursion where he echoes the cry of youth skepticism with a “whatEVER” to his French friends. This type of mature content might be redeemed if it were scaffolded by parental guidance or appropriate context, but instead the hollowed out authority figures are said to be the reason behind Gregory’s cheating and lying—I forgot to mention Gregory is keen on blaming everyone around him for his “shortcomings.”

So, why do I feel so strongly about these books? Even after watching the Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s movie preview (go to funbrain.com) I wasn’t nearly as troubled—the book seems to instantiate the details of Gregory’s semi-tortured youth in a much more realistic manner. If you have the time and your child brings home book one, take the time to read it in full and see if you agree.

Where Harry Potter or other modern heroes of children’s literature are readily separated from their fanciful or cartoon-based milieu, the influence of a book like this seems to find its reader appeal precisely because it speaks to the real struggles many kids face during this period of their life using humor, sentiment that appeals to base instinct and environmental settings that young kids can identify with. In short, even though the images of Gregory and his supporting cast are sketched in cartoon lines, the story and setting draw on friendship and bullying relationships, school settings, young love and the very real emotional struggles kids deal with as they begin to make sense of the world outside of their family life. And don’t be fooled because this book was #1 on the NY Times book list, this book is built from the ground up with a very strong message that is contrary to everything Christians (and those of any faith who are seeking to advance an understanding of morality) hold to be important.

Some of the More Problematic Scenes

2nd sentence of the book: “But remember how I said that if some jerk caught me carrying a book with ‘diary’ on the cover they were going to get the wrong idea?”

7th-8th sentence of the book: “Even without my Roderick problems, my summer was pretty lousy. Our family didn’t go anywhere or do anything fun and that’s Dad’s fault.”

page 21 “when I got out of the van, I called Rodrick a big jerk.”

Page 33-34 “…But what was even worse was when some girls came up to Rowley at lunch and started kissing his butt. But then I realized that wasn’t such a bad thing after all. So I started parading Rowley around the cafeteria, because after all, he IS my best friend” (sarcasm implied by author’s use of capitalization).

Page 34 “Dad has been taking me to the mall every Saturday for the past two weeks. At first, I thought it was because he wanted to spend more time with me, but then I realized he’s just making sure he’s out of the house for Rodrick’s band practices, which I can totally understand.”

page 40-41 “I remember when I was younger Mon and Dad telling me I was getting a little brother. I was REALLY excited. After all of those years of getting pushed around by Rodrick, I was definitely ready to move up on the totem pole” Cartoon picture of Gregory kicking his little brother in the behind with a joyful smile.

Page 42 “I really wanted to let Manny have it (3-year old little brother), but I couldn’t do anything with Mom standing right there.”

Page 47”Rodrick (older brother) doesn’t really care about his mistakes, so he tells Dad to just go ahead and type the paper like it is.” Dad then writes the paper for his son and turns it in. Rodrick learns to force his Dad’s hand so he will continue to write papers for him. Gregory observes this and later purchases Rodrick’s Dad-written letters to use in his own class.

Page 50 “There are 20 short stories in Sherlock Sammy Does it Again, but I treat each story like it is a whole book and the teacher never notices…I’m kind of an expert at writing book reports by now. All you have to do is write exactly what the teacher wants to hear, and you’re all set.”

Pages 52-61 A very disturbing story of how Gregory bullies a smaller and more vulnerable boy (evidently ethnic) named Chirag Gupta.

Gregory’s defense of his actions, “Before you go ahead and say I’m a bad friend for teasing Chirag, let me say this in my own defense. I’m smaller than about 95% of the kids at my school, so when it comes to finding someone I can actually pick on, my options are pretty limited. And besides, I’m not 100% to blame for dreaming up this idea. Believe it or not, I got the idea from Mom….So, if you want to point the fingers on the Invisible Chirag joke [the bullying], now you know who is to blame [read Mom here].”

page 61, when Gregory gets called to the principal’s office to defend his actions bullying Chirag, ”When I got to Vice Principal Roy’s room, he was pretty mad. He knew how I started the joke, and he gave me a speech about ‘respect’ and ‘decency’ and all that.” –yes, the author placed single quotes around “respect and decency” to indicate the crass attitude Gregory holds towards these values.

page 73, “Tonight, Mom got a call from Chirag’s Dad. Mr. Gupta told Mom all about the prank we were playing on his son, and how I was the ringleader. When Mom questioned me, I told her I didn’t even know what Chirag’s dad was talking about…Luckily, I was prepared for this kind of thing. I had already drilled Rowley on what to do if we ever got busted, and that if we both just denied everything, we’d be OK.”

page 78, “When Mom accused me of eating all the candy, I denied it. But I wish I fessed up right away, because that fib totally backfired on me.”

Page 86 “Next year I have to remember to sit next to Rowley and copy his job form so I can get in on some of that action [cheating].

Page 86-87 – grandma offers to pay them for every bag of leaves; so, they do their best to fill a bag with as few leaves as possible.

Page 94 – “After Mom gave us a speech about ‘responsibility’ and ‘trust’ and all that stuff, they took off.”

Page 126 “The teachers have really been cracking down on kids copying off each other this year. Remember how I said I was glad I got put next to Alex Aruda in Pre-Algrebra? Well THAT hasn’t done me any good.”

127-128 Gregory wishes he had some magic glasses to look at “brainy kids’” papers but wouldn’t be found out because his “magic” glasses would fool the teacher.

Page 146 “I mean, I’ve copied off of people’s papers on quizzes and stuff before, but BUYING a paper off of someone would be taking it to a whole nother level. So I decided I was just gonna have to suck it up and do the paper myself.” –he ends up giving up and buying a paper from his brother (page 147).

Pages 170-172, Gregory and his brother lie about their science fair intentions so they can watch horror movies. Gregory then draws disturbing pictures of a skull with a knife in it.

Near the end of book one (page 211) “That just proves once and for all that Mom doesn’t understand a THING about kids my age.” –yes, the author added the all caps here.

Page 212 – Gregory dreams that he goes to France for several years. In greeting his French friends, “yeah, whatEVER!”

Page 213-214, a story of Gregory “infiltrating” the women’s bathroom at Crossland High School spreads across campus. A cartoon of him photographing the girls in the locker room is shown on page 214. He is now a “hero” at school and he says, “I’m not about to set the record straight, either….And for the first time I knew what it felt like to be the most popular kid at school.”

Book #5

page 4 “Me and Rowley were better off without a girl hanging around, anyway. We’re both bachelors at the moment, and during the summer it’s better to be unattached.”

page 72-73 “They passed the [church] donation basket around like they do every week, and all I could think was how I needed that money more than whoever it was going to. But Mom must have seen the look in my eye, because she passed the basket to the row behind us before I could take what I needed.”

page 150 “I just hope Heather knows that I would do ANYTHING for her. If she wants someone to put suntan lotion on her back or towel her off after she takes a dip in the pool, I’m the man for the job.”


Note: We’ve only read book one and book five, so these examples are drawn from two of the six books.

Our Personal Response?

This is where each family will come to their own conclusions about whether or not some type of response is needed—many will feel their kids can properly contextualize the thornier parts of these books with little or no adult assistance. The main question I would ask here is what type of messages are being conveyed to kids in these books--even if the books are motivating kids to read?

In our case, we have chosen to allow our 3rd grader to read these books, but we are doing this with him. We ask him to read each page out loud and underline the sections that contradict God’s perspective on the matter. We also find ourselves laughing together at Gregory’s more humorous scenes and we’re ultimately trying to teach him the art of discrimination as we know he will desperately need this in the years to come. Ephesians 4:29, Proverbs 2, 5 and especially Proverbs 6:16-19 have been helpful as we discuss God’s values and our responsibility to glorify him with our actions and relations. We know that shielding our kids from some of the issues discussed in this book series is pointless as they will have to deal with them in the future; we just regret how these books handle many of these important issues and we personally feel many of these issues would be better addressed when our son was in middle school and had more life experience and knowledge of God’s word; not to mention the real-world consequences attached to cheating, stealing, lying and bullying. In light of how much younger children are being exposed to these issues via a much more aggressive and expansive media landscape, we’re doing our best to at least share our values with our children before books like these cultivate pessimism, distrust of authority and a belief in situational morality. So, in that light, we are thankful for the opportunities Diary of a Wimpy Kid has provided us to discuss all of these issues in case study of sorts.

What do you think? Do you feel Gregory and the other characters in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid inspire your children? Are these books appropriate for kids in 3rd and 4th grade--or any grade? What are the positive lessons learned from a book like this?