Jeff Kinney

Jeffrey Patrick "Jeff" Kinney (born February 19, 1971) is an American game designer and author of children's books including the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series. He is also attributed to be the creator of Poptropica. A cartoonist and a game designer from a middle-class background, Kinney is hailed as one of the world's greatest author of children's books.

Career
Kinney works full-time as a developer and designer of online games.[1] According to his website, he also created the kid-friendly website Poptropica. Kinney grew up in Fort Washington, Maryland, United States and attended the University of Maryland at College Park in the early 1990s. Throughout his whole life, he wanted to be a cartoonist. It was in college that Kinney created the popular comic strip Igdoof that ran in the campus newspaper, The Diamondback. While there, he knew that he wanted to be a cartoonist. However, Kinney was not successful in getting his comic strip syndicated after college, and in 1998, he started writing his ideas which would eventually become Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Loosely based on his childhood, the series sold close to 16 million copies world wide as of 2009 and was developed into a feature film, which Kinney also served as an executive producer for.[2]

To date, four Wimpy Kid books have been released, plus a do-it-yourself book. At least one additional book is planned to be released.

In 2009, Kinney was named one of Time magazine's 100 "Most Influential People" in the world.[3]

Personal life
Kinney currently lives in Plainville, Massachusetts[4] with his two sons and his wife.[5] Kinney attended Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, Maryland. He was born to a family of four, consisting of two brothers and one sister. His brother Scott, is also known to be a rather famous musician.