Usually when I have a book release party (such as Harry Potter and the Party of Anticipation or A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Pitiful Party) I get a lot of large care groups that come. Overall, this is great. A lot of larger day care/after-school care groups use our library. But, that means a lot of kids are at the party who haven't read the book. After a few years of this, for my Wimpy Kid party, I was prepared. In addition to not doing a trivia contest or any activity that needed knowledge of the books, every activity came with a lengthy introduction to place things in context.. But, for the first time, IT WAS NOT NEEDED.
We played Cheese Touch Tag (which used Dan's awesome Cheesehead Coaster) and I was introducing it and said "Ok, in the books, there is a piece of cheese that lives" and everyone shouted "ON THE BASKETBALL COURT!" It was awesome! In addition to Cheese Touch Tag (which is normal tag, but once you're tagged, you have to take the piece of cheese. And you're not allowed to throw the cheese.) We played the Fregley game that was on Jeff Kinney's website (hilarious!) and the Loaded Diaper game (buy a pack of disposable diapers. Fill them with such things as soy sauce, thousand island dressing, mustard, etc. Kids have to smell each diaper and guess what it is. Soy sauce was the hardest. NO ONE could get it.) We also had sheets with frames in them for kids to draw their own comics and pages from comic books and comic strips with the dialog whited-out so the kids had to write the words. (Other great comic ideas can be found on Jessica Abel's website. I only wish I knew about them BEFORE the party!)
We then drew names for copies of Dog Days and the Do-It-Yourself Book and gave out some of our leftover summer reading prizes. It was a great party and everyone had fun and even more awesome than the fact EVERYONE not only read the books but was a HUGE fan? 95% of our turnout was guys. Very awesome.
As for the book itself?
Not my favorite of the series (honestly, I don't think Kinney's ever going to top the Shel Silverstein moment from The Last Straw. Greg's an even bigger jerk than usual and there's an interesting friendship war with Rowley. A lot going on, but I didn't find it as funny as his others. Not to say it's not enjoyable, he just has a really high standard bar at this point.
Book Provided by... my local library
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1 comment:
I love that you had kids playing Cheese Tag!
My third-grader has read these mulitiple times (I've only been through the series once). Right now he's creating his own Wimpy Kids in a blank journal.
My students ate these books up. Thanks, Jeff Kinney!
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