Meeting Authors: Jeff Kinney

I'm sure you all know how much I love going to book signings. I've been lucky enough to meet dozens of authors. And I've met my top five favorite authors on more than one occasion: Melissa Marr, Kelley Armstrong, Charles de Lint, Holly Black, and Maggie Stiefvater. So when I found out that Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, was going to be in DC to promote his new book, Cabin Fever, I knew I had to take my boy.

Like me when I was his age, he doesn't much care for reading. It's not that either of us were bad with reading or reading comprehension; the problem lies in poor self confidence. I've gotten past that. But not John. However, John loves the Wimpy Kid books, and he was thrilled when I invited him to go with me to DC.

Book six is entitled Cabin Fever. It involves poor Greg being stuck inside while a blizzard rages outside. So to celebrate that, they created a fake snow storm.

Look... fake snow!

Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of the snow on the ground and the snowball fight. John and I didn't participate. He was too caught up in reading his new book. In fact, by the end of the evening he was on page 181 out of 224. But I did get a few pics toward the end. They had life-size cut-outs of the characters and cartoon scenes from the book. Here is Rodrick. They had him se up as a ring toss game.

Jeff Kinney rolled in on this bus. Lots of kids screamed when he got off and walked in.

We were in group 7 of 9 with 75 people in each group. Yeah... The place was packed. They were expecting 1200 people, and with over 600 books sold, I'd bet there were close to that many. But people were in and out, so it wasn't too bad. (And nothing compared to how packed RT was when I went in 2010.) John was so excited to meet Jeff. The entire way back to the metro, he kept saying "I can't believe I actually got to meet Jeff Kinney." He was so excited I almost teared up.

He was also excited to find out that two kids from the movie were there. I hadn't told him beforehand, so it was a nice surprise for him. Zachary Gordon who plays the main character, Greg, and Robert Capron who plays his best friend, Rowly were both very sweet. John got a poster of the two of them, signed by both.

It was a great event, and I was so glad I got to take John. We both had an amazing time.