Jeff Kinney, creator of Greg: "I want kids to put down the 'tablets' and read"

Millions of children around the world follow the adventures of a rebellious and clumsy boy named Greg.

Such was his success that his father, Jeff Kinney (Maryland, USA, 1971), has been included by

magazine in the list of the hundred most influential people on the planet.

Diary of Greg 17 Giving the note

jeff kinney

Translation by Eva Almazán.

Windmill.

224 pages.

€15 Ebook: €6.99

You can buy it here.

Molino publishing house has just published the seventeenth title of the collection,

has been recovered .

the occasion of the recent release of the film version.

, speaks to us via video from his home in Plainville, Massachusetts, about his character and the importance he places on reading.

How and when did Greg come about? He came out of me, he's a version of myself in a somewhat caricatured way.

A bit like I was at 12 years old.

I started writing about Greg at 28 and I'm 51 now, so we've been together for many years.What did he do until he was 28?He was a computer programmer for a medical software company, but he also programmed games.

I kept at it ten years after I published Greg's first books.Did he succeed with his first book?Succeed, succeed... It was a progressive triumph.

It entered among the best-selling books within two weeks of publication and was climbing positions.

It wasn't overnight, it was gradual.

After a year, the success was already clear. I imagine that many situations of his children will have been transferred. One is 20 and goes to university.

The other one is 17. I would have liked to have stolen more of their stories,

but deep down they don't look alike because they are more sporty, they play basketball... Today the situation is different from when I was little, they don't do the same thing. Was there a spark that prompted you to write? I always wanted to be newspaper cartoonist.

For three years I tried to get my drawings published, but to no avail.

When I created Greg I published the strips on my own website, because that type of character was not very popular.

After the initial success it was published on paper. Why, what was different about Greg? Greg is an 11 or 12 year old boy with many flaws, not the character he aspires to be.

And this is unusual, because usually children's and youth literature creates heroes.

Harry Potter, for example: he's brave, he's got powers, he's rich... he's got it all!

He somehow behaves like a miniature adult.

However,

I wanted to create a character that looked like me at that age and with those imperfections.

The comic part comes from recognizing precisely those imperfections.

Greg is like a mirror to the guys: they can recognize his flaws and his difficulties in character. Perhaps this is one of the keys to Greg's success. In a way, yes.

Because he is not a fully formed person.

When he says that he's going to be rich and famous, the reading kid knows that he won't be that rich or that famous.

And the parents know that he is going to be someone of the average level.

Greg's aspirations mark his personality. The seventeenth installment is now being published in Spain, in which Greg joins his brother Rodrick's rock band, doesn't he get a little older? The difficulty of the characters lies in their evolution but without growing much.

The idea of ​​caricature is to suspend reality.

My responsibility as a creator is to make sure the character changes, but not too much;

let him grow, but only a little. You will be aware that many children have begun to read with their books.

Like Harry Potter, they have done more for reading than any campaign. That's overwhelming.

What I try is to entertain, so that when a boy opens one of my books he doesn't think he's brainy, that it's not as boring as doing homework.

That when he finishes the last page he has the feeling of having achieved something.

And that he becomes addictive.

Now that 15 years have passed since my first book, I am beginning to meet the people who read that and are now adults.

Some tell me that they have a certain influence from Greg and that makes me very excited. What books did you read as a child? Above all,

Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

Look, I even have a replica here [showing through the computer screen].

For me those comics were profound literature.

I also read Judy Blume, an author of humorous fiction.

She recognized me in her characters.

And Tolkien, from

as far as I could get my hands on. How long does it take to draw and write a book? The first, eight and a half years.

Now, on average, six months. And when you don't draw, what do you do? I'm always working, because I'm the producer of the Disney + movies.

And I also like to go to see basketball games with my children.

And little else, really.

One of the images from the new 'Diary of Greg'

Writing and drawing books in the age of mobile phones and

is going against the current. A bit, but I've been very lucky because I've created a series that kids like.

As a writer I have a responsibility to compete with

and electronic devices in the best possible way.

Just achieving that to read one of my books they have to drop any screen I think is a success.

Our job is to compete by offering kids content that they want to read and that is positive.Your saga makes for a TV series, do you feel like doing it?Maybe in the future, but since I'm doing the Disney+ movies right now, one per book, with this I am satisfied.

Now I have realized that they were not so well written, so I have the possibility to improve them. Do you want to transmit some kind of values ​​or ideals to the boys? I know that many authors of children's and young adult literature have a moral objective, I do. What I want is for them to laugh.

My priority is humor.

And then, read.

My great hope is that they become addicted readers.

Salinger's. Both Greg and Caulfield have their flaws.

And they only tell what they want to be heard, but then the story goes further. Were you also like Greg, the second of the brothers, the one who goes unnoticed? Yes.

We were four and I was the third child, the one nobody sees.

Especially at school, there I felt like the invisible child. Are you afraid of running out of ideas?

At the rate it's going... Yes, a lot.

In fact right now I don't have the idea for my next book.

All I know is that it has to come out in October of next year. Has Greg taught you anything? Yes.

To begin with, that I have more defects than I thought.

And because my country, the United States, is so polarized, because the situation is so complicated, and not only here, I see how important reading is.

Because it helps you establish empathy with others who have not grown up like you,

they don't look like you

And that is achieved in a special way by books.

They allow you to get into the minds of others, understand what they think and what they feel.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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