Diary of a Wimpy Kid- The Last Straw

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The Last Staw

By: Jeff Kinney

Grades 4-5

REALISTIC FICTION

GRAPHIC NOVEL

I loved this book and it is was very humorous. I am working in a fifth grade classroom this semester and they absolutely love the Wimpy Kid's series because they are so humorous and very cool because they are very different. They are graphic novels so it is written in comic book style. The are novels in cartoons. The character Greg, a middle schooler, in this novel starts out by complaining. He thinks that the New Year's resolutions that his family have put into place for self-improvement are disrupting his life. His daddy is not in a good mood because he is on a diet, his little brother is giving up his pacifier so he is in a bad mood, and his mom is wearing exercise clothes that embarrass him. Greg is pretty cocky and thinks he is one of the best people that he knows and really can't think of any way to improve himself. He has many issues with his older brother and father throughout the book. Some of the issues comes from him being interested in a girl named Holly Hills. He tries to join the boy scouts to make his father happy and tries to find ways to attract Holly. I really like in his journal where he talks about trying to pursue Holly at the skating rink and asking her to couple skate with him. Well the couple skate didn't turn out for him, she announced his name wrong, called him Fregley and then he knew that she wasn't worth his time. He was over girls. That was example of the humor. At the end Greg was done with school for the summer. His Dad finally had lightened up and told him they could rethink the military academy and he could just do push-ups and sit ups every once awhile and just do a summer conditioning program at Spag Union instead of fulltime. He was so surprised. He then went to his friend Rowley's house before his Dad could change his mind and then while he was with Rowley a cute girl named Trista came up and introduced herself to them. He invited her to the pool. He realized at the end things were actually going his way but still was cocky thinking he was the best person he knows. I think this is a great book but would be difficult to incorporate in the classroom. They could read this book for independent reading which is in the fifth grade objectives or even we could discuss the characteristics of what a graphic novel is and then we could have it in the classroom. Either way it is such a cute book and I love the set up of the book. I would love to have this series in my future classroom!!