Add a diary with an embarrassing summer secret and then stir with two brothers and you have the essential recipe of Rodrick Rules, already a hit installment in Jeff Kinney's cunningly clever Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. At the center of stew is Rodrick's younger brother Greg who is attempting ever so valiantly to somehow survive middle school with his dignity intact. This story of peer problems and adolescent hijinks gains new legs this month with the March 25th release of a comedy film based on the book.

The voice is pitch-perfect and the action recognizably elementary, and not too mean.
—The New York Times

In a second set of entries-of a planned three, all first published in somewhat different form online in installments-slacker diarist Greg starts a new school year. After a miserable summer of avoiding swim-team practice by hiding out in the bathroom (and having to wrap himself in toilet paper to keep from freezing), he finally passes on the dreaded "cheese touch" (a form of cooties) to an unsuspecting new classmate, then stumbles through another semester of pranks and mishaps. On the domestic front, his ongoing wars with older brother Rodrick, would-be drummer in a would-be metal band called Loded Diper, share center stage with their mother's generally futile parenting strategies. As before, the text, which is done in a legible hand-lettered-style font, is liberally interspersed with funny line drawings, many of which feature punch lines in speech balloons. Though even less likable that Junie B. Jones, Greg is (well, generally) at least not actively malicious, and so often is he the victim of circumstance or his own schemes gone awry that readers can't help but feel empathy. This reasonably self-contained installment closes with a truce between the siblings. A temporary one, more than likely. (Illustrated fiction. 9-11)