Today I conducted an experiment. I read DIARY OF A WIMPY KID.

The questions to be answered were twofold:

1. Could I see why the series is so popular?

2. Are they as dreadful in literacy terms as I fear?

1/

If you're an English teacher or invested in any way in whole-school reading, the phrase "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" probably triggers a reflexive eye-roll. You probably suspect the books of:

- a lack of challenge
- poor vocabulary
- a lack of thematic depth

2/

But...Could I explain the appeal of these books?

Yes. Definitely.

These are the sort of books that look easy to write but aren't. The tone is very cleverly and subtly judged. They totally nail a certain type of school experience and 11 year old voice.

3/

To make a sweeping but I think relevant comparison with Harry Potter:

The Harry Potter books are very school-positive. School is a wonderful escape in those books, a nurturing space, a ready-made family, full of growth and possibility.

Not so in DOAWK.

4/

School in DOAWK is naff. It is a series of greater and lesser humiliations to be survived. Lessons, learning and teachers are comparatively unimportant.

I like the viewpoint in this book. It's authentic. There's a lesson in there for us teachers.

5/

HP is what future teachers read. Wimpy Kid is the book for students who just aren't all that invested in school. It's the book for students whose anxieties and interests outside of the classroom are just that bit more pressing than the Learning Objective of the day.

6/

There's a heartbreakingly bleak moment in DOAWK in which our hero Greg, forced into acting as a Tree in the school production, refuses to sing the Tree song because his brother has a video camera, thereby derailing the whole show.

7/

The threat of social damage done by the video of a singing tree is far more important to Greg than his parent-pleasing "big moment".

It's all a bit sad. But the point is well made.

I teach a few of these kids. We all do.

8/

They don't have any particular academic aptitude, they don't attend clubs, they don't have girlfriends, they're not in the in-crowd. They would happily sit through a video lesson every lesson and never complain.

I'm glad they have a series of books.

9/

Now the bad.

Question number 2: Are these books as awful for reader literacy as they seem at first glance? Are my English teacher prejudices justified?

This is the part where I tell you I was wrong this whole time?

Well...no. They're pretty bad.

10/

There is almost certainly no new vocabulary to glean from these books. Many of the sentences are non-standard.

But that's not what bothers me, really.

11/

I care more about the total lack of ambition or depth in the storytelling. The books are essentially a series of vignettes -- there is little to no "story" to follow. No mystery, no ambiguity, no symbolism.

I do, overall, think these things matter.

12/

Secondary students shouldn't really be reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Or they should read them once, quickly, and then move on to something better.

I don't necessarily agree that "as long as they're reading it doesn't matter what they read."

13/

Having said that, I do think they're quite cleverly executed for what they are.

14/14