Jeffrey Patrick Kinney

Web page about Jeff KinneyPicture by Daniel Wiseman 

I consider Jeff Kinney to be my hero. I chose him to read about because I enjoy the books he writes. I think they are funny and interesting. I own the entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series, and I read them again when I want to have a good laugh. The book I read for this was the biography Jeff Kinney, by Christine Webster, a Canadian author. It was 32 pages long and covered when Jeff was born (February 19, 1971) to November 15, 2011, when he published Cabin Fever. The book was published in August of 2012, and the author wrote many other books, such as “Who on Earth is Archie Carr? Protector of Sea Turtles” and “Mauna Loa (Natural Wonders of the World).”

Sketch of Jeff KinneySketch by Daniel Wiseman 

Jeffrey Patrick Kinney was born and grew up in Fort Washington, Maryland. His birth was on February 19, 1971, and his parents were Bruce and Madeline Kinney. Jeff also had two brothers and a sister. As a kid, he went to Potomac Landing Elementary and then went to Bishop McNamara High School. He studied computer science at the University of Maryland, where he wrote his popular comic Igdoof in The Diamondback, the campus newspaper. He loved reading as a kid, which could have foreshadowed that he would become an author and cartoonist. Jeff had always thought he wasn’t a great artist, so in his books, he stuck with stick-figures. Some of the people that influenced him as a kid were Judy Bloom, J.R.R. Tolkien, Beverly Cleary and Piers Anthony. Jeff also made a kid-focused website called “Poptropica,” where you travel around different areas and solve problems. Some of his books were made into films, which Jeff even produced.

Sketch of Jeff KinneySketch by Daniel Wiseman 

After college, Jeff could not get Igdoof published in a newspaper. He instead started jotting down notes for a book about a middle-school nobody who was made from the worst qualities of him and his brothers. It took a long eight years to write and publish Diary of a Wimpy Kid from those notes. Before Jeff met up with Harry N. Abrams, he made an online version of his book on Funbrain.com that gained popularity quickly and became a great success. This is because of his perseverance... if he had given up then he would not be as successful as he is today. Jeff is a creative man with a great sense of humour. He was able to make a book series full of wacky events and ironic comedy. A lot of shenanigans from Jeff’s past contributed to writing his successful books. For example, when he was a kid, Jeff used to take swim lessons, but when his parents dropped him off he would go over to a creek and catch tadpoles. However, once his parents came to his swim-meet early to watch him, but he was off at the creek. When he got back, he got in trouble, similar to an event in one of his Wimpy Kid books. His first Wimpy Kid book was immediately a bestseller, and now he has over 200 million copies of his books in print. Jeff’s books won 2 Children’s Choice Book awards and 6 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, and he was awarded the title of one of Time Magazine’s most influential people. Jeff’s talent for programming is evident in that his website, Poptropica, won the title of TIME’s 50 Best Websites. 

What surprised me is how many awards Jeff won, as well as how many of his books are in print. I would have had no idea if I had written about someone else. If I ever met Jeff, I would ask him the following questions. Do you have plans to open another cafe in another area? Are you currently in the process of programming a new website? Do your kids play the same pranks on each other as Rodrick plays on Greg in your Wimpy Kid books? I think the biography I read was very helpful when writing this. It was very informative and had some very interesting facts in it about Jeff Kinney. Like that some of Jeff’s favourite cartoons as a kid were about Disney’s Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck, and that Jeff thinks that books where everyone always does the right thing are boring. Although I had heard of the Poptropica website before I read the biography, I didn’t know that Jeff Kinney created it. Something that I have learned from Jeff Kinney is to persevere and to not give up on my dreams. I think that anyone who likes the Wimpy Kid books would find this biography quite enjoyable and interesting to read. After reading this biography I know a lot more about Jeff Kinney, and since he never gave up, I look up to him as a role model. I am very glad that I read about Jeff Kinney because I have read every Wimpy Kid book and it’s great to know the inspiration behind these books.

Jeff Kinney (Remarkable Writers)- https://www.amazon.com/Kinney-Remarkable-Writers-Christine-Webster/dp/1619135981

Goodreads: Christine Webster- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/294529.Christine_Webster

Scholastic: Christine Webster- https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/authors/christine-webster/

Famous Authors: Jeff Kinney- https://www.famousauthors.org/jeff-kinney

The Famous People: Jeff Kinney- http://thefamouspeople.com/profiles/jeff-kinney-35577.php

Wimpykid.com- http://wimpykid.com/about-the-author/