Hard Luck (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series #8)

by Jeff Kinney

Overview

In Hard Luck, book 8 of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series from #1 international bestselling author Jeff Kinney, Greg Heffley's on a losing streak.

His best friend, Rowley Jefferson, has ditched him, and finding new friends in middle school is proving to be a tough task. To change his fortunes, Greg decides to take a leap of faith and turn his decisions over to chance.

Will a roll of the dice turn things around, or is Greg's life destined to be just another hard-luck story's

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419741944
Publisher:	Amulet Books
Publication date:	11/05/2013
Series:	Diary of A Wimpy Kid
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	22,472
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	1020L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jeff Kinney is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and the Awesome Friendly Kid series. He is a six-time Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award winner for Favorite Book and has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. He spent his childhood in the Washington, D.C., area and moved to New England, where he and his wife own a bookstore named An Unlikely Story.

Hometown:

Southern Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

February 19, 1971

Place of Birth:

Maryland

Education:

University of Maryland

Website:

http://www.wimpykid.com/

Editorial Reviews

11/11/2013
Is Greg Heffley’s self-absorption catching up with him? Maybe so, since he spends much of the eighth book in Kinney’s bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series bemoaning his lack of friends. Rowley, his former right-hand man/doormat, is occupied with his new girlfriend, and Greg is so desperate for companionship that he even tries befriending class weirdo Fregley. “I could mold him into exactly the kind of friend I wanted,” says Greg, who’s basically looking for someone to lug his schoolbooks around and “scout ahead for dog poop” on the sidewalk. Clashes with Greg’s extended family also figure in, as does Greg’s discovery of a Magic 8-Ball. Kinney once again gets in plenty of funny jabs at pop culture and everyday kid life, from poster board science fair projects (“Does It Float?”) to Greg’s rediscovery of his flannel “Body Blankie,” which, while supremely comfortable, proves to be a liability during gym class. With Kinney sticking to the same school- and family-based brand of situational humor that made the previous books so popular, his legions of fans will likely devour this eighth offering as well. Ages 8–12. Agent: Sylvie Rabineau, RWSG Literary Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

In the latest installment of this popular series, Greg is feeling abandoned because his best—and only—friend, Rowley, has a girlfriend. Narrator Ramon De Ocampo sounds too old to be convincing as a middle schooler, but his performance is expressive and clear. His pacing is excellent, leaving listeners enough time to laugh and process what’s happening beyond Greg’s limited viewpoint and clueless self-absorption. As ever, this series masterfully displays adults’ well-meaning confusion, as when Greg discovers his mother’s hidden stash of parenting guides and his school’s attempts to create community go awry. A wide range of listeners will empathize with Greg and his all-too-familiar troubles. A.F. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2013 - AudioFile

2014-04-22
In this eighth outing for Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley, he copes with the aftereffects of having unwittingly matched up best friend Rowley with Abigail in his previous outing (The Third Wheel, 2012).Readers who have experienced the ebbs and flows of middle school friendships might be inclined to feel sorry for Greg, except that all his reasons for his new unhappiness are so characteristically selfish. With Rowley gaga over Abigail, Greg now has to walk to school alone, losing his dog-poop scout and pack horse, for instance. Readers will have to squint between the lines for evidence of real emotion. As always, Kinney gets in a dig or two at the idiocies of modern education, snarking at ball-game bans in the name of safety and lame efforts to reduce bullying. Also as always, the plot meanders, taking Greg and readers from the middle school ecosystem to Easter at Gramma's for a look at extended-family anthropology before tackling science-fair stress. Greg's reliance on a Magic 8 Ball for all decision-making is good for some yuks, as is his discovery of a secret shelf of parenting books in the back of his mom's closet: Tellingly, amid such titles as Making Them Love Reading, Taming Your Defiant Child and Parenting Picky Eaters is Raising Decent Human Beings.By the end of the book, Greg may have taken a microscopic step or two toward becoming a decent human being, but as usual, it's mostly despite his best efforts. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews