'My concern is that AI makes a lot of things very easy': 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author on raising kids to read and think
'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author Jeff Kinney shares his parenting advice — and what he'd do differently. Simon Simard for BI This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeff Kinney, the 55-year-old author of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, who lives in Plainville, Massachusetts. It has been edited for length and clarity. When I wrote " Diary of a Wimpy Kid ," I worked on it for eight or nine years without thinking I was writing a book for kids. I thought I was writing a book for grown-ups that would feel like "The Wonder Years" or "A Christmas Story" — looking back on childhood through the lens of an adult. The first thing that surprised me was that my publisher said I'd actually written a children's series; it caused a lot of cognitive dissonance. But what also surprised me was that kids understood the irony in the books. They understand that Greg is an unreliable narrator; they seem to get the joke. After writing t...
