HispanicBusiness

What does it take to knock a best-selling heavyweight such as Dan "Da Vinci Code" Brown off the top of the best-seller lists?

Apparently, a wimpy kid.

The fourth book in Jeff Kinney's "Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series for young readers, "Dog Days," made its debut at No. 1 last week on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-seller lists, as well as at the top of the New York Times Children's Series list.

More than 1 million of the 4 million copies that went on sale Oct. 12 have been sold, and the publisher, Abrams Books, has ordered an additional 500,000 copies to meet demand.

"We are monitoring the sales and stock on a daily basis to make sure we keep up with the extraordinary demand," said Michael Jacobs, the president and CEO of Abrams. "Clearly the new 'Wimpy Kid' book is driving traffic into stores and the sales of the backlist titles -- up almost 200 percent over the last month -- is a testament to the amazing strength and power of this property."

Another testament to the popularity of Kinney's work is that the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series is one of the few books that my colleagues at the Tulsa World ask about whenever a new shipment of books comes in.

Usually that request is phrased in a tone of feigned nonchalance, as in, "If you ever get a copy of 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' that you don't want, I'll be happy to take it off your hands."

Novels by Nobel Prize winners, insightful works of non-fiction, piles of poetry volumes -- those I can keep.

But for a book about a wimpy kid, they line up at my desk.

All right, maybe not really. But enough people ask about this series that I decided to see what the fuss is about. And, after zipping through "Dog Days," I get it.

Kinney's books are designed to look like a kid's diary: carefully printed words and simple yet effective drawings on lined pages. And Kinney perfectly captures the self-absorbed, just-barely-aware-of-the-world-around-him voice of his adolescent anti-hero, Greg Heffley, as he faces yet another summer.

"For me," Greg states at the outset, " summer vacation is basically a three-month guilt trip."

Greg is a self-professed "indoor person," more comfortable in front of some sort of screen than in the area outside the screen door.

And this particular summer goes wrong in all sorts of ways. It starts with an $83 tab for fruit smoothies at a country club, then continues with some frightful experiences at the town's swimming pool, a birthday party that nets Greg zilch in the way of neat presents (the combination leather recliner-toilet he imagines as the perfect gift is nowhere to be found), not to mention his mother's efforts to get Greg to read or go outdoors or bond with his father over anything but their shared dislike of a silly cartoon in the newspaper, "Li'l Cutie."

At least Greg reads the newspaper

I can understand why middle-grade readers -- for whom the books are written -- love these stories. Greg Heffley is an average kid, and the things that befall him are as believable as they are funny.

And I can understand why some kids might have to wait to read these books until after their parents are done with them. Greg's tone of voice is just adult enough to give some of his comments a nicely satirical snap, and his jaundiced view of how life is treating him in these difficult years is sure to strike nostalgic chords with readers way beyond "Diary of a Wimpy Kid's" demographic.