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Express Tribune
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Have kids' books lost the plot?
Hardcore readers amongst you may have found yourself nearly fainting in shock upon goggling at the colourful illustrations colonising every page of every children's novels in bookshops today. In this rather unfortunate situation, please bring extra cushions, because if author Anthony Horowitz — who brought us the adventures of teen spy Alex Rider — is in the vicinity, he, too, may partake in this fainting expedition. Please not that I am not pointing fingers at Julia Donaldson's picture books replete with witty quatrains about gruffalos to lasso the fleeting sanity of parents of toddlers; I am referring specifically to middle grade books (or junior fiction aimed at ages 8-12) positively bursting with cartoon illustrations, the 'pick me' of books in an era when reading is a tedious chore assigned by the greater good (as opposed to an addiction rivalling the pull of nicotine). Yes, Wimpy Kid tomes with your stick figures and literally anything trotted out by David Walliams: this means you. What Horowitz says "I have misgivings about the world of children's books," Horowitz comments during a recent appearance on the Headliners podcast. "You know if you look in a bookshop, the books that seem to be popular — and I'm not decrying them for a minute because they are giving children pleasure — tend to have very bright colours on the cover and [a] sort of slightly cartoonish look." Lamenting the steadily rising number of attention spans repulsed by (or terrified of) the prospect of anything over 300 pages, Horowitz's complaints about modern children's books are not over — and nor that they are without scientific merit. "They're very short, they're big type, they're lots of pictures... that seems to be now what is more popular and it's not what I write," he continues as he goes on to blame social media for snipping away at attention spans. For the cynical adolescent or Gen-Zer, it is almost impossible not to dismiss Horowitz's misgivings as the rantings of an old man yelling at clouds. To them, Horowitz is merely gazing longingly into what all of those in their (our?) advanced years love more than anything else in the whole world: the rose-tinted rear view mirror. Even as we snooty lovers of (proper) fiction nod in agreement with poor Horowitz, far too many of us will blush at the memory of our parents' visceral horror in the '90s at our deep love for the almost bottomless well of Sweet Valley Twins, Nancy Drew, and the ageless Hardy Boys (the lifeblood of Karachi bookshops in the nineties). To add salt to the wound, we callously eschewed the works of JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis, and (worst of all) Mark Twain tentatively suggested by hopeful elders. Now, thanks to the circle of life, the time has come for us to issue those horrified elders a sincere mental apology and unabashedly join Horowitz as we, too, lament over the decidedly downward spiral children's fiction is on. Is it really rose-tinted glasses? Heavens, no. A casual riffle through the children's section will yield colourful Quentin Blake-style illustrations beefing up the text with relentless tenacity. Short, sharp sentences and random capitalisations (in a larger font size to truly ram home the point) festoon almost literally every page lest the sight of unremitting lines of text fail to lure you in. Children's novels have assumed the hard-copy appearance of a Tumblr (or Instagram or Facebook) rabbithole, catered specifically to an audience whose world will be laden scores of open tabs, powered by a powerful thumb capable of marathon scrolling. Horowitz refrained from naming and shaming any author in particular, but we need not be as courteous. Let us examine the aforementioned Walliams — currently considered one of the UK's best-selling children's authors, albeit minus the global tidal force that was JK Rowling. I have here before me a sample from his collection of short stories, The World's Worst Children 2 (2021), although it is impossible to convey the full visual kaleidoscope in mere text without the array of font sizes, illustrations and random bold items Walliams has at his disposal: "Creepy-crawlies are called creepy-crawlies for a reason. They are creepy and they are crawly. Slugs, worms, spiders, caterpillars and cockroaches are creatures that give most people the creeps. Not Griselda. Griselda was a girl who loved creepy-crawlies. If she saw a worm wiggling around in the mud, she would pick it up and put it in her pocket." Contrast this with Kaye Umansky, a children's author in the '90s whom almost nobody has heard of. Here is a short sample from Pongwiffy and the Holiday of Doom (1995): "Poor Scott. The world of show business is fickle and things hadn't been going at all well for him lately [...] The punters had stayed away in droves, and the film had broken all box office records with the lowest ever takings in history. Since then, he had been what is commonly referred to in show business circles as 'resting', which in all other circles means out of a job." Sucking out the joy It is unfair to condemn one and laud the other on the basis of scant lines, but rest assured that you can consider this application of wit and sentence structure as an accurate snapshot of their respective magnum opuses. Just like Walliam's fictional world encompasses a wild imagination (we cannot fault him for his stories the way we can for his liberal use of visual aids or short sentences), Umansky's repertoire is also filled with wild plotlines involving witches, vampires, goblins — but richly told via an almost Jane Austen-esque humour to keep parents hooked. However, because Umansky's prose remains trapped within pages absolutely riddled with text and very few pictures, her books may as well be invisible to an enquiring child. I know this because at a local school, one librarian who wished to remain anonymous (for reasons that will soon become clear) said, "Take the whole Pongwiffy set if you really want, but don't tell anyone at school I'm just giving it all to you — we were getting rid of them anyway because they've just been sitting there for about 10 years." Is it because fewer than ever parents are reading to their young children now? Has the task of learning to enjoy fiction been unceremoniously dumped upon an eight-year-old's unwilling shoulder without a guiding hand? Or do publishers simply need to work harder than ever (snappy sentences! Lots of colour!) to stand out as books become a dying breed? One particular literary agent told screenwriter Cairo Smith (who promptly complained on X, as he well should) that teenagers can no longer understand a third person omniscient style. Are teenagers really this uncomprehending and unforgiving? Or is it because no publisher can risk losing to the seductive powers of social media? There are no easy answers — but how sad would it be if the adults of tomorrow have no literary childhood heroes to return to when they are in desperate need of a restorative hit of nostalgia.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author talks upcoming projects
PLAINVILLE, Mass. (WPRI) — 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author Jeff Kinney is booked and busy. In addition to writing best-selling novels, Kinney and his wife Julie are in the process of transforming downtown Plainville with the hopes of bringing their community together. 'I think it's really important to take care of your own backyard,' Kinney said during a live interview on 12 News at 4. The project, called 'Plainville Square,' will bring a beer garden, restaurant and village green to the downtown area. Rhode Island brewery The Guild is partnering with the Kinneys to create the food and beverage garden that is slated to open in the fall. 'Especially in Massachusetts, the towns were built up around factories and things like that, and then those jobs left, but the people are still there,' Kinney explained. 'They want that feeling of community, and we have to reimagine what our downtowns look like.' MORE: 'Wimpy Kid' author, RI brewery to open beer garden in Plainville Kinney also shared more about upcoming projects in the 'Wimpy Universe' including new movies that will be released on Disney+. You can watch the full interview in the video above. Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Sydney Morning Herald
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Homework, bullies and pets: Jeff Kinney on why kids love his books
Most authors are secretive about their works-in-progress. Jeff Kinney? Not so much. In the first few minutes of our interview, he's sharing his laptop screen and showing me pages of notes for his next book. If you were a nine-year-old, this would be like Leonardo da Vinci saying, 'Check out these sketches I've been doodling for that Sistine Chapel gig...' Kinney is a rock star among pre-teen readers. Heck, even kids who don't read still read Kinney. His Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the fourth bestselling book series of all time – we're not just counting kids' books, we're talking all books. There are 19 official entries, and Kinney has penned spin-offs as well as a series of feature film adaptations. Then there's Hot Mess, the live stage show the author himself performs, which will bring him to Australia in May. Loading The Wimpy Kid books follow Greg Heffley, a young teen chronicling his high-school misadventures. His family are classic comic foils – mean older brother Rodrick, annoying younger brother Manny – but there's genuine affection given to characters like Greg's bestie Rowley. The series is written and drawn in a deliberately simple style, printed on the kind of lined paper you'd find in a homework notebook. It all creates the sense that any kid could have made this – and you could too. 'If a kid picks up one of my books and opens it, they say, 'Oh, this? I could do this. This looks like fun.' And that's how reading should be. I think the handwritten font is friendly, and the cartoons are fun. But I think that the humour is the thing. If the books weren't funny, I don't think I'd have 19 in the series. I pride myself on the joke writing and I think kids respond to that.' I'd heard that an average Wimpy Kid book contains around 300 to 400 jokes. 'Yeah, now it's more like 1000,' he says. That's when he shares his desktop, navigating past the kinds of files you wouldn't show a journalist ('Ticketmaster password', 'Health log') to 'Book 20 ideation'. Here it is, the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Apple Notes form. It's a brainstorm of thoughts and joke ideas spiralling out from the concept of 'cake'. The sheer number of gags contained on each of these pages makes 1000 jokes per book seem like child's play. Kinney's global success means that he travels a lot, and he often wonders what it is about his writing that translates well in places with very different cultures from the US. 'I think it's that the types of things I'm writing about are familiar to every kid, like having parents and homework and bullies and pets,' he says. 'This is just the common language that we share. We went through the same things, you know? And we laugh at the same things. So especially in a time of real political upheaval here in the US, it gives me a lot of hope that there is so much commonality between kids around the world.' Loading Kinney grew up reading the likes of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. 'I could see the protagonists as a reflection of myself. Those were kids just like me. And it never occurred to me at that time – nor until much, much later in life – that every kid doesn't get that experience of validation.' He hopes that kids see themselves in his writing, he says. In keeping with that spirit, I've outsourced some of my questions to a class of grade threes and fours at a local primary school. Number one: Are Kinney's characters based on real people? 'They are. Every one of the Heffleys is an exaggerated funhouse mirror version of somebody in my own family,' Kinney says. 'The rest of the characters, not so much. They're mostly fictional. But Greg's friendship with Rowley is based on a friendship I had growing up. 'I didn't have a lot of friends, but he and I had each other, and we built this kind of world together. Even though Rowley's not based on him, the relationship is based on my friendship with my best friend.' Question two: Which of his books is his favourite? 'There's a book I wrote called Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, and I wrote it in about a month and a half, just before the pandemic struck. I wrote it really fast, and I'm really proud of it because I think it's fun and funny and sort of fresh.' Question three is so broad that most adult journalists would avoid it, but it's also one that every kid with a pen in their hand would like an answer to: Why did you start writing, Jeff Kinney? 'I felt like being a cartoonist was what I was born to do. I just needed to figure out a way to get my cartoons into print somehow.' Kinney spent almost a decade writing his first Wimpy Kid book, all the time with an adult audience in mind. Yes: one of the world's most successful kids' books began as a series for grown-ups. 'I thought I was writing something that was looking back on childhood. In those eight, nine years I was working on it, I was thinking of this as something more like The Wonder Years or A Christmas Story, where it was childhood seen through the lens of an adult's backwards-looking perspective.' Loading At the time, he was working for a website with a large audience of schoolkids. When he began posting Wimpy Kid content there, it struck a chord. 'It started to get a lot of traction online before I ever showed it to a publisher.' I don't know what Kinney's publisher would think of him sharing the plot of a book that's yet to be released. I know what an actual fan would think, since my own nine-year-old enters the room during our interview. It's testament to Kinney's connection with his readers that he instantly welcomes the newcomer into the conversation, asking for feedback on some of the novel's plot points and even revealing the cover art of the book. That kind of generosity is partly how his upcoming live show came about. In recent years, his book signings have attracted queues three hours long, so he and his team transformed them into interactive lines full of activities to do while waiting. That grew into a full-scale interactive stage show – first came Diper Overlode, a rock concert with 'live performers and fog machines and laser lights'. Now he's bringing his new show to Australia, adapted from his most recent book, Hot Mess. 'The conceit of the show is that … I'm quitting the book business and we're opening a restaurant, and I need to hire waiters and staff and chefs and everything like that.' It seems unlikely that Kinney will be quitting the biz for real any time soon. But you have to wonder why someone who has sold 290 million books wants to get up on stage and clown around.
The Age
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Homework, bullies and pets: Jeff Kinney on why kids love his books
Most authors are secretive about their works-in-progress. Jeff Kinney? Not so much. In the first few minutes of our interview, he's sharing his laptop screen and showing me pages of notes for his next book. If you were a nine-year-old, this would be like Leonardo da Vinci saying, 'Check out these sketches I've been doodling for that Sistine Chapel gig...' Kinney is a rock star among pre-teen readers. Heck, even kids who don't read still read Kinney. His Diary of a Wimpy Kid is the fourth bestselling book series of all time – we're not just counting kids' books, we're talking all books. There are 19 official entries, and Kinney has penned spin-offs as well as a series of feature film adaptations. Then there's Hot Mess, the live stage show the author himself performs, which will bring him to Australia in May. Loading The Wimpy Kid books follow Greg Heffley, a young teen chronicling his high-school misadventures. His family are classic comic foils – mean older brother Rodrick, annoying younger brother Manny – but there's genuine affection given to characters like Greg's bestie Rowley. The series is written and drawn in a deliberately simple style, printed on the kind of lined paper you'd find in a homework notebook. It all creates the sense that any kid could have made this – and you could too. 'If a kid picks up one of my books and opens it, they say, 'Oh, this? I could do this. This looks like fun.' And that's how reading should be. I think the handwritten font is friendly, and the cartoons are fun. But I think that the humour is the thing. If the books weren't funny, I don't think I'd have 19 in the series. I pride myself on the joke writing and I think kids respond to that.' I'd heard that an average Wimpy Kid book contains around 300 to 400 jokes. 'Yeah, now it's more like 1000,' he says. That's when he shares his desktop, navigating past the kinds of files you wouldn't show a journalist ('Ticketmaster password', 'Health log') to 'Book 20 ideation'. Here it is, the Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Apple Notes form. It's a brainstorm of thoughts and joke ideas spiralling out from the concept of 'cake'. The sheer number of gags contained on each of these pages makes 1000 jokes per book seem like child's play. Kinney's global success means that he travels a lot, and he often wonders what it is about his writing that translates well in places with very different cultures from the US. 'I think it's that the types of things I'm writing about are familiar to every kid, like having parents and homework and bullies and pets,' he says. 'This is just the common language that we share. We went through the same things, you know? And we laugh at the same things. So especially in a time of real political upheaval here in the US, it gives me a lot of hope that there is so much commonality between kids around the world.' Loading Kinney grew up reading the likes of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. 'I could see the protagonists as a reflection of myself. Those were kids just like me. And it never occurred to me at that time – nor until much, much later in life – that every kid doesn't get that experience of validation.' He hopes that kids see themselves in his writing, he says. In keeping with that spirit, I've outsourced some of my questions to a class of grade threes and fours at a local primary school. Number one: Are Kinney's characters based on real people? 'They are. Every one of the Heffleys is an exaggerated funhouse mirror version of somebody in my own family,' Kinney says. 'The rest of the characters, not so much. They're mostly fictional. But Greg's friendship with Rowley is based on a friendship I had growing up. 'I didn't have a lot of friends, but he and I had each other, and we built this kind of world together. Even though Rowley's not based on him, the relationship is based on my friendship with my best friend.' Question two: Which of his books is his favourite? 'There's a book I wrote called Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, and I wrote it in about a month and a half, just before the pandemic struck. I wrote it really fast, and I'm really proud of it because I think it's fun and funny and sort of fresh.' Question three is so broad that most adult journalists would avoid it, but it's also one that every kid with a pen in their hand would like an answer to: Why did you start writing, Jeff Kinney? 'I felt like being a cartoonist was what I was born to do. I just needed to figure out a way to get my cartoons into print somehow.' Kinney spent almost a decade writing his first Wimpy Kid book, all the time with an adult audience in mind. Yes: one of the world's most successful kids' books began as a series for grown-ups. 'I thought I was writing something that was looking back on childhood. In those eight, nine years I was working on it, I was thinking of this as something more like The Wonder Years or A Christmas Story, where it was childhood seen through the lens of an adult's backwards-looking perspective.' Loading At the time, he was working for a website with a large audience of schoolkids. When he began posting Wimpy Kid content there, it struck a chord. 'It started to get a lot of traction online before I ever showed it to a publisher.' I don't know what Kinney's publisher would think of him sharing the plot of a book that's yet to be released. I know what an actual fan would think, since my own nine-year-old enters the room during our interview. It's testament to Kinney's connection with his readers that he instantly welcomes the newcomer into the conversation, asking for feedback on some of the novel's plot points and even revealing the cover art of the book. That kind of generosity is partly how his upcoming live show came about. In recent years, his book signings have attracted queues three hours long, so he and his team transformed them into interactive lines full of activities to do while waiting. That grew into a full-scale interactive stage show – first came Diper Overlode, a rock concert with 'live performers and fog machines and laser lights'. Now he's bringing his new show to Australia, adapted from his most recent book, Hot Mess. 'The conceit of the show is that … I'm quitting the book business and we're opening a restaurant, and I need to hire waiters and staff and chefs and everything like that.' It seems unlikely that Kinney will be quitting the biz for real any time soon. But you have to wonder why someone who has sold 290 million books wants to get up on stage and clown around.
The Citizen
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Citizen
Wimpy Kids musical's a treat
Based on the 250 million-selling Jeff Kinney novels, anyone who has read the books or streamed the adaptations will feel right at home. Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Musical isn't just good. It's seriously fantastic. As far as family entertainment goes, little can top this show. It's a sixty-minute romp, simultaneously snackable and moreish. Because Greg Heffley comes to life, just a few metres away from young, and a little bit older, fans. If you have not seen it, book your tickets now. The show is an hour-long, but somewhat shortened version of the 120-minute musical. But like condensed milk, it's sweet and oh so yum. Nothing's lost, but audiences have everything to gain. Based on the 250 million-selling Jeff Kinney novels, anyone who has read the books or seen some of the streaming adaptations of the stories will recognise many of Greg's major life moments in the production. There's the 'cheese touch', weird kid Fregley and the cartoon competition with the Zoo Wee Mama dispute between best friends Rowley and Heffley. Audiences have everything to gain Director Vicky Friedman and showrunner Daphne Kuhn have created a gem. It must have been tough, though. There are two sets of casts, comprising 16 kids each, plus actors Sarah Richard and Sechaba Ramphele, who are the common denominators and play Heffley's parents and teachers. 34 people to manage is no joke, yet the choreography, the performances, the singing… it's all top drawer. ALSO READ: 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Musical' Set to Rock Sandton From the moment they sat down, it was excitement and anticipation for my kids. As the lights dimmed and Heffley shared that his journal wasn't a diary, their gaze remained fixed on the stage. For a five and seven-year-old used to fast-moving games on devices or running around in muddy puddles, such undivided attention for sixty minutes is unusual. But that's how engaging the score, the script, and the performances were. Engaging script and performances Afterwards, the pair wanted more copies of Wimpy Kid books. And over lunch, they started reading the instalments we bought. On the way home, in the car, the phrase 'this is not a diary, it's a journal' went on repeat between the two. Back at home, instead of asking for anything else, they were buried in books. That's the beauty of the Wimpy Kid series: the cartoons make it accessible to kids of any reading level, and the musical brought it all to life. In turn, it sparked a greater desire to read more. Kevin Del Aquila's script, together with Alan Schmukler and Michael Mahler's music, never veers from the spirit of the books. The storytelling is superb. The magic is in the performance. Friedman and Kuhn's casting was impeccable, and there's not a single performer whose star turns needed to be carried by their mates at any time. Collectively, they pulled off numbers like In The Middle Of It All and Animal Heart with what would be complex choreography for a kid, exceptionally. The tunes are sticky, and the dream sequence of Animal Heart was my 7-year-old's favourite moment in the show. For the 5-year-old, Fegley's strangeness was hilarious. Fabulous storytelling Eye contact and audience engagement, drawing both young and older people into the narrative, were seriously well done. Comedic timing, another significant challenge for any performer, was pulled off well. The American accents, nobody skipped a beat in the show we saw. Greg Heffley's quest for popularity in Middle School is a universal story that everyone can resonate with in some aspect or another. There are a lot of life lessons squashed inside it all, but not the prescriptive sitcom kind. Instead, the familiarity of Heffley's challenges, from sibling rivalry through to the eccentric and popular kids at school…we've all been there, and our kids must still go through it or, depending on age, are wading through it all as we speak. Wimpy Kid, The Musical runs until 4 May at Theatre on The Square in Mandela Square, Sandton. If you miss it, you'll be sorry. Now Read: Louis Khoza: Turning township hustle into artistic purpose
