Author Jeff Kinney will appear at a drive-thru event at The Diamond on Oct. 27. (Photo courtesy Jeff Kinney)
Jeff Kinney, author of the bestselling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series, is touring this month to launch “Big Shot,” the 16th installment of the saga. Kinney comes to the parking lot of The Diamond on Wednesday, Oct. 27 on the second stop of the tour. He will personally deliver signed copies of “Big Shot” to participants after they drive through a series of “Wimpy Kid”-themed festivities, with life-sized characters replicating key “Big Shot” moments such as Field Day, tryouts and the protagonist's first score. The event is sold out, but signed copies of the book are available at bbgb.
"Big Shot" continues the story of Greg Heffley, a cowardly and unathletic middle schooler, as he somehow lands a spot on the basketball team. Previous “Wimpy Kid” graphic novels have sold more than 250 million copies in 65 different languages, and the first book in the series has remained on the New York Times bestseller list since 2007.
Also known for the live-action “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” movies and the spinoff book series “Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid,” Kinney is one of the most significant figures in kids content today.
Calling from his bookstore in Plainville, Massachusetts, Kinney talked with us to discuss how it all began.
Richmond Magazine: How did “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” start?
Jeff Kinney: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” started with failure, actually. It was my failure to become a newspaper cartoonist that led me to trying to figure out a different way to get my cartoons published.
RM: How does “Big Shot” tackle failure?
Kinney: “Big Shot,” really is all about failure; it’s a sports book for kids who aren't sporty. I'm really trying to let kids who sit at the end of the bench feel seen. That was me in a way. I'm trying to give them a vocabulary for being able to laugh at how ridiculous the sports world is.
Take for example the tryouts: … Every time you mess up, the evaluator is right there with their clipboard writing down your number. And every time you do something good, there are no evaluators to be found. So I was really trying to write about those kinds of things. In my book, Greg's mother is sitting near the evaluators watching the tryouts going on, and she's actually ratting out the kids … who are screwing things up. So there's a lot of humor to be found in those humiliating situations.
RM: Is it hard to capture the mind of a middle schooler like Greg?
Kinney: It's pretty easy for me to write in Greg's voice because he thinks a lot of the things that I think. He's a more exaggerated version of myself. He's a flawed person just like I'm a flawed person; he's an incomplete person just like I'm incomplete. So most of the time when I'm writing for Greg, I'm writing from my own point of view.
RM: How does it feel to meet and interact with your readers?
Kinney: You know, I write these books in isolation. I live in a little town called Plainville, Massachusetts, where I do my work. And then it's really important to get to see what happens on the other side — to put the book out to the world and then to meet the kids who are reading it. We're touring in a really unique way, we're doing these drive-through events, and so I at least get to have a face-to-face moment with each kid, which is really impactful.
RM: If someone was in sixth grade when they read your first book, they'd be 25 now.
Kinney: That's really interesting, isn’t it? Right now, these kids are … not kids anymore. They're in this nebulous period where they're too old for my books but they haven't had kids of their own. I think it's going to get really interesting in about eight or nine years when the people who grew up on my books are introducing my books to their kids, and they'll probably feel differently about my books than they did when they were younger. It'll be interesting to see how my books age.
This article was edited for length and clarity.
Tickets to the event, which include a signed copy of Big Shot and a photo with Kinney are $15.89.
