Kinney marks 10th anniversary of ‘Wimpy Kid’ series

NEW YORK (AP) — Jeff Kinney remembers when his goal was to write a book, one big book, for grown-ups.

"I thought I'd write about a year in the life of a typical kid," says the children's author known to millions for his "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series. "I'd write one book that was between 700 and 1,000 pages long and I'd look at every aspect of childhood within that time frame. Furthermore, I was writing for the humor section of the bookstore, not the middle grade section."

Kinney spoke to The Associated Press recently as he looked back at the decade since "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" made him one of the world's most popular writers. The first 11 novels have sold more than 180 million copies and the series has been the basis for four movies, with the latest, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul," scheduled for May 19. Abrams Books told the AP on Wednesday that the 12th book, coming Nov. 7, will be called "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway."

The misadventures of middle schooler Greg Heffley, sketched in readers' minds as a skinny boy with a round head and precious few strands of hair, have stood out in two ways in the book world — they appeal equally to girls and boys (sometimes known euphemistically as "reluctant readers"), and they have consistently sold more than 1 million copies in hardcover, an achievement few books attain anymore thanks in part to the rise of e-books and the fall of the Borders superstore chain.

"The books are funny and appeal to all levels of readers," says Judy Bulow, lead buyer for the children's section of the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver. "And we've seen a plethora of stories from other authors (Rachel Renee Russell's "Dork Dairies," Tom Watson's "Stick Dog") like that, with a lot of illustrations and clever humor. The kids eat them up. If there's not a new 'Wimpy Kid' book, they want something like it."

Kinney, 46, is a Fort Washington, Maryland, native who studied at the University of Maryland, College Park, and while in school created a comic strip that ran in the campus newspaper. Kinney, speaking by phone near the bookstore that he and his wife, Julie, own in Plainville, Massachusetts, recalls how Heffley had been on his mind for years before he finally got a book deal. He liked the idea of a kid defined not by heroics, but by "flaws and imperfections," not unlike what the author saw in himself.