Corner: 'Wimpy Kid' and other hybrid books that offer unalloyed joy

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Greg Heffley is a hybrid, and his millions of young fans love it that way.

For those who haven't yet met Greg, he's the hapless star of the best-selling kids'-book series, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney. Nothing is easy for Greg, a middle-school student with a large ego, small brain and a nose for trouble.

Narrated in a comically deadpan tone by Greg himself, the "Wimpy Kid" books hilariously depict tween life, from the doomed efforts to impress girls to the half-witted pranks that boomerang. Greg sets the tone at the beginning of the first book in the series, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid": "... I'll be famous some day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons."

Greg's misadventures are laugh-out-loud funny, but there's another reason millions of kids love these "Wimpy Kid" books: they're "hybrids," half-text and half-illustrations. With the skyrocketing popularity of graphic novels among kids, it's no wonder that kids love Kinney's mixture of text printed on what looks like lined paper and deceptively simple, cartoon-style drawings.

Make no mistake about these books, however. While they look simple and Greg says and does stupid things, the "Wimpy Kid" books actually offer insightful humor that can even be sophisticated at times. Adults who read these books -- and they should, if they're parents -- will discover some important, if sometimes troubling, insights about the way many adolescents approach life as spotlighted in Greg's lazy, ethically challenged persona.

Above all else, however, the books are funny, and Kinney's comic brilliance continues to shine in the just-published fourth volume in the series, "Dog Days" (Amulet/Abrams, $13.95), which had a 4-million-copy first print run. As the book opens, summer vacation has just begun and Greg is looking forward to days in front of the TV "playing video games with the curtains closed and the lights turned off."

Of course, his mother has other ideas, such as an all-boy "Reading Is Fun" club. Greg's mother is hoping to get the boys to read "classics" like "Little Women" and "Old Yeller." The boys, however, prefer books like "Ultimate Video Game Cheats" and "X-Treme Pop-Up Sharks."

As Greg says: "I'm not really sure what makes a book a 'classic' to begin with, but I think it has to be at least fifty years old and some person or animal has to die at the end."

Greg's summer pretty much goes downhill from there: it rains during his family's "fun day" at the local water park, he's sent home for bad behavior during a vacation week with his friend Rowley's family and he nearly gets his father arrested. Greg concludes: "You know, I should have just stuck with my original plan and stayed inside this summer, because all my trouble started the minute I stepped out of the house."

While the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books have raised the profile and popularity of hybrid books, Kinney's not the first person to combine text and illustrations in that way. For example, the first "Magic School Bus" books, written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen, have offered kids a hybrid reading experience for more than two decades.

Two other series that have been around for a while, the "Captain Underpants" books, written and illustrated by Dav Pilkey, and the "Amelia" books by Marissa Moss, also are hybrids, mixing text with lots of illustrations. Moss also had the idea to tell her story on lined paper in a font that looks like Amelia has written it herself, a device that Kinney uses for Greg in the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books.

Moss recently has published a new hybrid series, the "Max Disaster" books, which include a comic strip starring the Alien Eraser.

One of the best new hybrid series stars a girl named Eleanor McDougal, who is dubbed "Ellie McDoodle" because she is constantly sketching. Written and illustrated by Ruth McNally Barshaw, there are two books in the series so far -- "Have Pen, Will Travel" and "New Kid in School" (both published by Bloomsbury; $11.95 each).

The most literate hybrid book is, without a doubt, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" (Scholastic, $24.99). Written and illustrated by Brian Selznick, the book is a marvelous concoction of text and illustrations, which were spectacular enough to win the 2008 Caldecott Medal. It's the first children's novel to win the Caldecott, which usually is awarded to picture books.

Other hybrid series include: the "Geronimo Stilton" books (Scholastic); the "Fog Mound" books, written by Susan Schade and illustrated by Jon Buller (Simon & Schuster); and the "Dear Max" books, written by Sally Grindley and illustrated by Tony Ross (Aladdin).

(Karen MacPherson, the children's/teen librarian at the Takoma Park, Md., Library, can be reached at Kam.Macpherson(at)gmail.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)

CHILDREN'S CORNER