Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the first book in the series. The book was released in April 2007, and was followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.

Summary
The book takes place in Greg's sixth grade year. The book is mainly about Greg Heffley and his friendship with Rowley. The Cheese Touch also plays a part in the story.

Plot
The book begins with an introduction to Gregory "Greg" Heffley and his middle school life. It takes place during his first year of middle school. Greg explains the diary to us: “First of all, let me get something straight: This is a JOURNAL, not a diary. I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I SPECIFICALLY told her to get the one that didn’t say “Diary” on it.” Then Greg goes to school and says the school is much different from elementary school, explaining about what girls liked and what was different from elementary school.

Prior, Rodrick tricks Greg into thinking it was time to get ready for school, but it really was three o' clock in the morning, so he gets in trouble by Frank. Greg tries telling him Rodrick woke him up, so Frank goes to the basement and checks on Rodrick, who was pretending to sleep.

In the first half of the book, Rowley and Greg endure events such as Halloween, learning how to wrestle, and acting in the play of The Wizard of Oz as a tree (Greg). During trick-or-treating on Halloween night, Greg and Rowley are ambushed by a group of teenagers. They take refuge at Greg's grandmother's house and taunt the teenagers from there by making sounds and faces at them. This upsets Greg's mom, who orders them to come home. They do come home, but get a surprise when they come to the driveway—Greg's father drenches the two friends with a trash can full of water.

On Christmas day, Greg writes that he gets very few presents that he likes. He does not get the one thing he really wants, a video game called Twisted Wizard, but instead gets a red sweater because his parents mix the presents up, an 8 x 10 picture of his uncle, and a Big Wheel (from Rowley). Manny gets all the presents that he wanted, making Greg more frustrated. Greg then throws a football at Rowley while the latter is riding the Big Wheel, breaking his hand. At school, Rowley is surrounded by girls because he is injured, which makes Greg mad because he wants more attention from girls.

Greg and Rowley join safety patrol, and had to walk the morning kindergartners home. When Rowley isn't there, Greg chases the kindergartners with a worm. He is wearing Rowley's hat, and Rowley gets accused of doing the whole thing. When Greg confesses to Rowley, Rowley tattles on him and gets promoted in safety patrol. Rowley and Greg get mad at each other. Slowly, they begin drifting apart and Rowley starts hanging out with Collin Lee; when he goes near Rowley's front yard, walkway, or house. Greg retaliates by spending his night at Fregley's. The sleepover turns into a disaster as Fregley becomes hyper by eating too many jelly beans and begins to chase Greg with a booger. Greg then leaves and runs home in the middle of the night.

Nearing the end of the school year, the school holds a comic competition, and with a bit of cheating, Greg wins. However, Mr.Ira alters his comic so much he decides to quit. Rowley then enters his own comic, called Zoo-Wee Mama, which was originally Greg's idea. Rowley becomes famous throughout the school. Greg tells Rowley to list him as the co-creator because it was his idea and joke punchline. Rowley then denies that Greg had anything to do with it. They get ready to fight but are then interrupted by the teenagers they taunted on Halloween. They showed up to pay them back and they force Rowley to eat the cheese at the blacktop, but Greg gets away by lying to the teenagers, saying he is allergic to dairy products. The next day, when the children realise the cheese is gone, Greg chooses to protect Rowley, and says that he removed the Cheese. Unfortunately for him, the other students thought that this meant Greg actually touched it, giving him the Cheese Touch. For the rest of the year, Greg is in seclusion from everyone else and he and Rowley become best friends again. Despite Greg's best efforts to become "class clown" in the favorites page in the yearbook, the title is given to Rowley for his Zoo-Wee Mama comics.

Greg states at the end of the book that he threw away his yearbook and doesn't care about Rowley having the title of Class Clown, but if it goes to Rowley's head, Greg will remind him that he was the one who ate the cheese and won't mind telling the entire school about it.

Film Adaption
In 2010, the book was adapted into an animated/live action feature film. It was directed by Thor Freudenthal and was rated PG.

Trivia

 * The book is also known as Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A Novel in Cartoons.
 * It was originally published on the internet as a slightly different book at FunBrain.com.
 * The book also was a #1 New York Times bestseller.