by Felicia Donovan
My nine-year old friend, Alex, recently loaned me his copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I've watched this series climb up the bookselling charts to hit the number one spot both in adult and children's categories and was ever so curious about it.
An hour and exactly 224 pages later (a quick read, I assure you), I understood why. Author Jeff Kinney has managed to capture the developmentally immature, mischievous antics of socially-challenged Greg Heffley, an angst-driven adolescent who makes life anything but mundane. The stick-like figure cartoons lend hilarity in their sardonic simplicity. It's not often that I find myself chuckling out loud while reading, but when skinny Greg tries to dupe teens out of money, he preemptively asks his out-of-shape friend, Rowley, to teach him some karate moves, "But Rowley said he's a gold belt in karate and he wasn't going to teach his moves to a 'no belt."
Once again, I'm kicking myself in the tooshie for not having thought of writing it first. Angst? You want angst? How about my nightmare of being the fourth child in a line of straight "A" smarties - all of whom had the same teachers. "You are related, aren't you?" Mrs. Allgrove asked as she studied me over her bifocals, mystified that unlike my siblings before me, I couldn't tell a polygon from a polliwog.
Sarcastic whit? Did you not hear that I was President of the Club? Read the t-shirt and buy a clue.
Adolescent hi-jinx? I'll journal my little heart out about skipping classes to go to the beach and thinking we would get caught and be thrown in jail or worse - sent home to face our mothers.
Another great series I coulda, shoulda, woulda written -- if only I'd thought of it first. Hats off to you Jeff Kinney. That's okay, I have an idea for another book about what to and not to eat. My working title is Eat This, Get Fat. It's got bestseller written all over it, don't you think?
11 comments:
I wish I'd thought of the Stephenie Meyer vampire books, but I could never have written them.
Same with the Harry Potter franchise.
My son loves those books!
I felt the same envy when I looked at them....stick figures? Yeah, even I might be able to manage those!
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
Love your faux book cover, Alicia! How'd you do it?
Very funny post, Felicia. We all experience book envy. Also love the photo on the post - quite creative and clever.
My experience in school was the opposite of yours. My older brother was a trouble-maker and drop out. When I took a couple of classes at the same high school the summer before entering high school, teachers glared and snarled at me and said they hoped I'd do better. When I told my mom, she moved me to a different school immediately. Wonderful decision.
Funny!
Is DIARY OF AN ENVIOUS AUTHOR available for pre-order yet?
You could make a fortune!
That cover is great, Felicia. As for my envy, I wish I'd thought of Dexter. Pure freakin' genius.
I see kids at my childrens school with this book every day. Great concept title for your book. Good luck with that. I think it can work.
Stephen Tremp
The cover was an act of pure creative fun. Yes, even I, the artistically-challenged (add that to math and science), can manage a stick figure now and then. A little cutting and pasting and voila! I'm offering signed copies of the original for a limited time only. Get 'em while you can because you'll all be cussin' and a-swearin' later on...
So you all think it has potential, eh? I'll remember to dedicate one in the series, because it's bound to be a series, to all of you...
Um, Felicia, any idea why I called you Alicia? "Diary of a Woman Who Should Leave Multi-tasking to the Grown-ups."
No problem, Jess. It seems we all have a lot of diaries to write!
that's inspiring. thank you for releasing the envy feeling inside us all!
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