As a kid, I loved journals of the fill-in-the-blank variety and have a sneaking suspicion that young want-to-be writers and artists will find themselves delighted by the challenge of filling up the pages of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself" book. "Diary of a WImpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book" is the first book that I've read in Jeff Kinney's  series of books.

The main difference between this and other fill-in-the blank journals for kids is that this book is actually funny. The book does have the standard questions which include the desert island question, a list of favorites and least favorites, but fortunately contains a lot more material for kids to enjoy. Kids who think that fart jokes are among the funniest things on the face of the earth might enjoy the unfinished "Fart Police" cartoon and any young inventors might like the opportunity to create some new inventions with illustrations and descriptions of the inventions.

The fill-in-the-blank portion of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book" is more creative than the typical journals of the same kind. Kids can fill in important information such as the number of times they've been caught picking their nose, the longest they've ever been grounded, and the length of the shortest book you've ever used for a book report. Undoubtedly, they will be happy to have that kind of useful information recorded and on hand when they come of age.

Like the other books in Jeff Kinney's series, the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book" has lots of cute cartoons geared towards kids. My personal favorite was a short little cartoon about Gareth the Green Bean who was picked on at school because he was an unappreciated vegetable.


The end of the book contains lined pages for under-aged journalists, would-be bloggers, and avid diarists to record their thoughts and dreams. Because the book is set up in such an interesting way, it might even tempt some more reluctant kids to take out their pens or pencils, if only to scribble out some little cartoons.

And, I must admit that reading through this book made me eager to check out the rest of the books in the series, which look pretty funny and interesting.