Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series #14)

by Jeff Kinney

Overview

An instant #1 USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestseller!

In Wrecking Ball, Book 14 of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series from #1 international bestselling author Jeff Kinney, an unexpected inheritance gives Greg Heffley’s family a chance to make big changes to their house. But they soon find that home improvement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Once the walls come down, all sorts of problems start to crop up. Rotten wood, toxic mold, unwelcome critters, and something even more sinister all make Greg and his family wonder if the renovations are worth the trouble. When the dust finally settles, will the Heffleys be able to stay . . . or will they need to get out of town?

And don’t miss Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson’s Journal—the instant #1 bestseller—told from Greg's best friend Rowley’s perspective!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419739033
Publisher:	Amulet Books
Publication date:	11/05/2019
Series:	Diary of A Wimpy Kid
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	4,129
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	940L (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

2019-11-19
The Heffley family's house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.

When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg's mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family's cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work's been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school's dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg's mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn't want to lose his best friend). While Greg's positive about the move, he's not completely uncaring about Rowley's action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the "stress lizard" brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special-style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews