Wimpy Kid bullies The Lost Symbol  

Jeff Kinney’s latest book in the massively popular children’s series Diary of a Wimpy Kid has replaced Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol as the number one bestseller on Amazon.com. The newest in the Wimpy Kid series, Dog Days , sees uninvolved and indolent protagonist Greg Heffley battle it out with adolescence, school politics and family life with as little effort as possible.  

While parents ponder the merits of the book and complain that its prolific use of words such as ‘moron’,  ‘jerk’, ‘dork’ and ‘hot girls’ may not generate the best qualities in 8–12 year olds, kids love it. While Harry Potter’s fantastic world of magical fantasy make for an entertaining read, it’s the Wimpy Kid that accesses the preoccupations of the pre-adolescent mind.  

While there was a tendency for children’s books to focus on morality being the only possible outcome of any situation, Greg Heffley shows parents the ethics at play in a child’s mind. Loved by boys and girls alike, the book gives parents an opportunity to understand the thinking of their postmodern children while kids read about a regular kid with regular problems outside of battling the dark lord for their soul.  

Although teaching kids that being amoral sometimes pays, it does get them back into books, for which at least 50 percent of parents are grateful.