'My concern is that AI makes a lot of things very easy': 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author on raising kids to read and think
Source: Business Insider ·
Jeff Kinney, author of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," encourages feeding kids' interests, listening without judgement, and facilitating social interactions.
From the source
'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' author Jeff Kinney shares his parenting advice — and what he'd do differently.Simon Simard for BIThis as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jeff Kinney, the 55-year-old author of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series, who lives in Plainville, Massachusetts. It has been edited for length and clarity.When I wrote "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," I worked on it for eight or nine years without thinking I was writing a book for kids.I thought I was writing a book for grown-ups that would feel like "The Wonder Years" or "A Christmas Story" — looking back on childhood through the lens of an adult.The first thing that surprised me was that my publisher said I'd actually written a children's series; it caused a lot of cognitive dissonance.But what also surprised me was that kids understood the irony in the books. They understand that Greg is an unreliable narrator; they seem to get the joke.After writing the series, and after raising two kids of my own — ages 21 and 23 —…