Jeff Kinney

“I'm keeping my day job, because Poptropica is something that really energizes me. I'd love to create a TV series or write a film that's not in the 'Wimpy' universe, but I know it will be dif...”

“My office doubles as a karaoke den for the neighborhood. There are strobe lights and Rock Band plastic guitars, a disco ball and a fog machine and some other things. I have a really long wor...”

“On our swim team, they had something called the 'developmental meet.' I didn't know it was a meet only for the worst kids so that they could get a ribbon, and I'd show up with my friend who...”

“I draft on the computer. I have a really giant screen that attaches to my laptop, and then I have a humongous digital drawing tablet called a Cintiq. It sits at all different angles, and it'...”

“Looking back, I realize my favorite stories weren't in books, they were in comics. On top of being a history enthusiast, my father was also a comics fan, and he kept his stash in the top dra...”

“I had a very normal, very typical American childhood. My father worked for the government at the Pentagon and my mother was an educator, so we had a very average upbringing, but that's helpe...”

“With the recent addition of a full soundtrack and the players map, millions of Poptropicans around the globe are now fully immersed in a multimedia gaming experience when they embark on our...”

“I had an older brother, an older sister and a younger brother, and though I look back fondly on my childhood, I think that when you've got four siblings sharing the same resources and a sing...”

“If I were put into a college lecture hall right now and told to pay attention for 45 minutes, it would be physically impossible for me to do. I'm one of those people who believe that ADD is...”

“I write in reverse: Rather than come up with a narrative and write jokes for that narrative, I write jokes independently of the narrative, then I try to fit them in.”

“We're incredibly excited to welcome the 500 millionth Poptropican into our virtual world. When we started in 2007, we never could have imagined that we'd see a day when half a billion avatar...”

“Kids and adults have a difference of opinion when it comes to what constitutes legitimate reading. Adults often push books that they loved as children, which, ironically, were often books th...”

“I gravitated to Judy Blume early on. 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing' was my favorite, with a realistic and relatable protagonist in Peter Hatcher. When I reached the fourth grade, I made t...”

“We're extremely excited to see more than 500,000 friends around the globe be added within the first 12 hours of launching Friends on Poptropica. The reaction has been extremely positive from...”

“I labored for eight years thinking I was writing a book for adults that was a nostalgic look back on childhood. Then my publisher informed me I'd written a children's book.”

“When I started writing 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid,' I was trying to write the type of book you might enjoy, put back on your shelf, and rediscover a few years later. I hope that the book finds it...”

“I've never run into a person who yearns for their middle school days.”

“Kids can sniff out a moral. They can feel the heavy hand of an adult.”

“If there is any message in the 'Wimpy Kid' books, it is that reading can be and should be fun. As an adult reader, when I see an obvious moral lesson to be taught, I run in the other directi...”

“When I was on the swim team as a kid, I used to hide out from my coach by going into the bathroom and hiding out in one of the stalls. And I would literally wrap myself in toilet paper so as...”