The author even called on a few adults to be on his team against the children. As part of his appearances at select schools, Kinney is partnering with Scholastic Book Fairs to offer students tokens for three free books: two titles of their choice and one copy of The Meltdown.įor the grand finale, Kinney selected two kids from the audience to serve as team captains in a “Battle Royale” inspired by the epic snowball fight in The Meltdown. The fall tour also includes school visits in Boston and Plainville, Mass. It’s really exciting it feels like I can keep doing this and attracting new generations of fans.” The fact of the matter is a lot of those kids today were a year old, or just born, when the first book came out. The 450-seat auditorium resounded with cheers when Kinney was introduced.Īlso in the audience was Charles Kochman, editorial director of Abrams ComicArts and editor of the Wimpy Kid series, who said of the crowd’s welcome, “That was one of the loudest reactions I ever heard for Jeff.” Kochman later had to step in to maintain order when the young winners of a book raffle were invited to claim their prizes, swarming the front of the auditorium.Īfter the event, Kinney told PW, “It’s humbling to get that kind of reaction from kids-especially middle schoolers, who tend to be a bit more jaded than elementary school kids. Up until the Wimpy Kid bus pulled up in front of Lincoln Middle School in Meriden, Conn., at noon on Friday, teachers and students knew only that a “mystery author” would be visiting. On November 2, PW joined Kinney in Connecticut for a behind-the-scenes look at The Meltdown tour.
The following eight international stops are also part of Kinney’s fall tour: Denmark (a new destination for Kinney), the U.K., Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada. Since the series’ 2007 debut, more than 200 million copies of the Wimpy Kid books have sold worldwide, in 59 languages, including Latin, and Scots.
The “Wimpy Kid Live” show features many of the hallmarks of Kinney’s presentations for young readers-an overview of his early inspiration and path to publication (condensed from 30 minutes to two minutes) a drawing demo footage from his international tours and a Q&A-along with trivia challenges, dance-offs, and a snowball fight bringing to life a climactic scene in the newest book.
On October 30, the day the book hit shelves, Kinney set off on an eight-city East Coast bus tour, including-in addition to public appearances at a number of elementary schools-a live, one-hour interactive performance, which was produced by the Switch agency and Abrams. In honor of the release of The Meltdown, book 13 in his wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, author-illustrator Jeff Kinney decided to add some variety to his usual school and bookstore visits.
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