That's a real privilege as a writer.Books for Readers who like Diary of a Wimpy Kid I really hope that goes on for a while and I hope one day the kids who first read my books, introduce them to their kids. It's really cool that there's always a new generation of kids reading these books. It's really cool to have something that's so enduring and the kids who first read my books are now going out to their first jobs as adults. I've been doing this for - how many years has it been since 2007? 14 years. How do you feel about being able to write something with such staying power? Wimpy Kid began what feels like ages ago now, back in 2007, and it's still going.
#DIARY OF A WIMPY KID NEW BOOK SERIES#
We know that we're introducing this series to a whole new generation of readers, so this felt like a way to kind of make a fun statement. It's a fun way of celebrating that first book. Well, the tie-in is actually a recovering of the first book, but it's got the Disney characters on it, and, on the back, there's an image of Greg's feet standing next to the cheese. The film has a tie-in book as well - what can you tell us about that?
![diary of a wimpy kid new book diary of a wimpy kid new book](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1bsC2kfIzEM/maxresdefault.jpg)
I think that for myself and for the people I work with, it's really important to see the faces and to be able to deliver the goods. The moment where you hand a kid their book is really important because it makes you feel like you accomplished something - it's reaching a reader. When I write these books, I write them in isolation and it's important to kind of close that loop. I think the most exciting thing is seeing the faces of kids and making that connection, I think for selfish reasons, this tour is really important to me. What do you think is the most exciting aspect of the Drive-Thru tour? That's in the planning phases right now, but it'll be fun because we'll send a lot of kids to games who might not have the chance to go otherwise.
#DIARY OF A WIMPY KID NEW BOOK PROFESSIONAL#
We're also doing this thing called, "Books and Basketballs," where we're visiting different Boys & Girls Clubs on our tour route and we're going to surprise them with the new book and tickets to a professional basketball game. We're trying to make it as fun as possible for kids who are in their cars and don't get the opportunity to do something physical. That's really evolved to the point that we've created these experiences the Big Shot tour, which is going to be this drive-thru experience where there are various basketball-related activities and a lot of atmosphere and crowd noise and paparazzi taking pictures and things like that. I had a lot of fun writing about what it's like to play sports for a non-sporty kid.
![diary of a wimpy kid new book diary of a wimpy kid new book](https://www.books4school.com/images/product/9781419741852.jpg)
So that was part one of cracking that, and the other thing I did in this book is I wrote about Greg's experiences in lots of different sports and his take on the Olympics and, even though the book has a basketball focus, I think that most of the situations in the book are relatable to kids. So I sort of solved that by putting lots of balls and sports equipment on the cover to send the message that, "This is just the sports book." Then the other thing is that, once you put a certain type of ball on the cover, then the book is specific to that sport and then it alienates kids who don't play that specific sport. Then that turns off a lot of kids who don't play sports or don't love sports. I've been wanting to write a sports book for a really long time, but I've always known that, as soon as you put a picture of a ball on the cover of a book, that makes it a sports book. How did you bring that kid-centric approach to writing Big Shot?