This past year, my son Ryan learned about the Diary Of A Wimpy series at his school book fair. At the time, he wasn’t exactly a book worm and at 6 years old, I wasn’t really sure if the series was for reading level. Still he was instantly drawn in by the cute cartoon on the cover and was excited to purchase it. To my surprise, he finished that book within 2 days. I couldn’t believe it!
We were so excited he was excited about reading, we bought another… and another. He was finishing them in one to two days. Before you knew it we had every book- including the Movie book and the “Do It Yourself Book”. He was hooked.
He watched the movies over and over and we have been counting down to the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Dog Days Of Summer for months!!
So when we were offered to meet and interview Zach Gordon, Robert Capron and author/creator Jeff Kinney at the Trenton Thunder Game in NJ, we could not pass it up.
Ryan prepared his questions on index cards and read them over and over on the way to the stadium. When we arrived, the cast was signing autographs for the large crowd that had showed up to meet them. Ryan instantly lit up at the sight of “Greg” “Rowley” and Jeff Kinney in person!
He wasn’t the only one. All of the kids on line were beaming. With the questionable idols children have today, it was refreshing to see middle school kids (both boys and girls) so excited to meet the cast of a wholesome movie and book series! They must have signed autographs for over an hour and when their rep said they were taking a 15 minute break, the stars insisted that they skip the break and press on signing books and posters- which I thought was amazing!
When signings were done, we were brought up to private suite for the big interview!
Ryan walked right up to Jeff Kinney, in awe and unsure of how to get his attention. He eventually muttered out a “hello” and “I’ve read every book”… and they were instantly friends.
Moments like these inspire kids. I felt like I wanted to tell Jeff Kinney how incredibly thankful I am for these books making my son love reading, and also improving his reading level, but found myself lost in the moment. I’m sure he knew… right?
Below is the interview with Jeff Kinney, Zach Gordon and Robert Capron.
This past weekend we went to see Dog Days Of Summer with the whole family (4 yr old included), and like the previous movies we all loved it.
The movie follows Greg, Rowley and friends on their summer vacation. Greg’s parents have a much different idea of what summer vacation is all about and Greg father struggles to find common ground with his tween-age son (something all parents and kids can relate to at some point).
There were tons of funny scenes that left all of the kids in the theater belly laughing.
Ryan hasn’t stopped talking about his favorite scenes since we left the theater…and now the count down to when it comes out on DVD will begin.
