September 4, 2008
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by
Jeff Kinney
Remember the books we read Back in the Day? Two types of fiction were available to us: chaste romance for girls and cars for boys. In dozens of books for girls, for example, Betty Cavanna explored teenage dreams and the conflicts of growing up female. Henry Gregor Felsen wrote about boys and their hot rods. These books and others like them reflected a more wholesome and innocent time.
Today’s books for young adults reflect our edgier world. Books dealing with drugs, alcohol, sexual issues, and other provocative topics are common. Adults and kids alike read books written for the young adult audience: J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Jeff Kinney and his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is another crossover that kids and adults can enjoy. Kinney is superb at writing material about junior high that is funny to both kids and adults.
Ah, those happy days of junior high, when the veneer of civilized behavior lay so lightly upon us, when friendships turned brown faster than gardenias, when girls were so mean that Vlad the Impaler came across as no worse than Beth in Little Women. Remember the cliques and factions, led by the popular girls in full eyeliner appliqué and, the popular boys, their hormones carbonating almost audibly. Even lunch was no respite. I always ended up sitting across from Marlene, who had the unfortunate tendency to laugh right after she swallowed most of a gulp of milk. Those days all came back to me as I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.
When last we saw our hero Greg Heffley in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, he had survived everything from cursed cheese to an unfortunate stage debut. In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, not much has changed. Greg’s still a victim of his older brother Rodrick’s crazy schemes and his younger brother Manny’s three-year-old excesses.
And there’s the little issue of blackmail. Greg might have to do what Rodrick says for a while, too, because his older brother knows something terrible—horrible, even—that happened to Greg over the summer, and he’s threatening to tell the world. And although Greg might try to participate in everything from role-playing to writing his comic strip to forget it, eventually that sword of Damocles is going to fall. It’s just a matter of time.
It’s hard not to feel vindicated when Rodrick finally has something bad happen to him at the end of the book. (Who knew that YouTube can be the ultimate equalizer? It brings adolescent embarrassment to a whole new level.)
Most books in which the older brother is portrayed as a lazy villain end with that same brother protecting or sticking up for their younger sibling by the story’s end. It’s the kind of thing that reassures kids that no matter how awful their siblings are, blood is thicker than water, that whole bit. This happens a little in real life, but more often than not, you get a situation like the one in this book. One brother is deep in his teen years and is willing to take advantage of his little brother by any means necessary.
Much is new in the sequel. We get a chance to see Löded Diper, Rodrick’s band, play. We see Manny enter preschool on Halloween Day. Greg’s mom institutes the Mom Bucks program, which sounds a little too real to have been made up. She also joins in a game of Dungeons and Dragons—with a character named “Mom.”
Greg’s life is what we remember and what kids are going through today. Everybody gets away with stuff except for us. Parents are too nerdy or out-of-it to be of any use, friends are unreliable, and the world is a scary place where our unique skills are not recognized. Greg might be exaggerating some of the events in his life—but who doesn’t.
If you like
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, then you’ll like
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. It’s thoroughly enjoyable and hilarious, and sometimes a little too close for comfort. —PD
