Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2007

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-10

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 5 Summary: “January”

After Christmas, Greg creates a game where Rowley rides the Big Wheel down a hill, and Greg tries to knock him off by throwing a football. Rowley asks to switch places, but Greg refuses, stating that “[t]hat thing was hitting thirty-five miles an hour, and it didn’t have any brakes” (137). One day, Greg successfully hits Rowley, and Rowley breaks his hand. Rowley starts to get lots of attention at school, and Greg becomes jealous, so he decides to fake an injury to get attention, but it doesn’t work.

Greg signs up for a class called Independent Study, where he has to work with other students to “come up with ideas for what [a] robot might look like and what kinds of things it would be able to do” (147). He wanted to sign up for Home Economics 2 because he was good at Home Ec 1, but “being good at sewing doesn’t exactly buy you popularity points at school” (145). Here, there is an illustration showing two boys teasing Greg for having an embroidered bag he made.

The boys and the girls decide to split into groups, and the boys spend the entire class period creating a list of “bad words the robot shouldn’t be able to say” (149). The teacher isn’t pleased, and Independent Study is canceled for the boys for the rest of the year. The school announces that there will be some openings on the school Safety Patrols, and Greg and Rowley decide to sign up so they can get “instant bully protection and a free pass from half of Pre-Algebra” (153) by walking the half-day kindergarten students home. Greg and Rowley also take advantage of the “free hot chocolate they hand out” (154) to the Safety Patrol kids. Greg is more than happy to take advantage of the Safety Patrol position, but he doesn’t take much responsibility for the kindergarteners, because he “didn’t sign up for any diaper duty” (155).

Chapter 6 Summary: “February”

One day in February, it snows, so school is canceled. Greg admits he is relieved, because “[they] were supposed to have a test in Pre-Algebra, and [he’s] kind of slacked off ever since [he] became a Safety Patrol” (156). Greg and Rowley decide to try to set the world record for the world’s biggest snowman, but they run into some obstacles, such as the first snowball being too heavy and ripping up patches of grass. Greg proposes that they roll the giant snowball down their neighborhood’s hill and take out the “kids from Whirley Street [who] use [their] hill for sledding, even though this isn’t their neighborhood” (159). The next morning while Greg is waiting for Rowley, Greg kicks over Manny’s snowman, and his dad takes a shovel to Greg and Rowley’s giant snowball, “[reducing] all [their] hard work to nothing” (162). When Rowley comes over and sees what happened, he is very angry with Greg because he feels it is Greg’s fault that Greg’s dad destroyed their giant snowball. Just before the argument turns physical, they are both pelted with snowballs from the kids they had planned to take out with their giant snowball.

At school, Greg and Rowley learn that the school paper has an opening for a cartoonist. They decide to team up to create a new cartoon, but they quickly run into creative differences. They create a comic where the punchline is always “Zoo-Wee Mama!” (167), but Greg claims that there is an “obvious drop in quality once Rowley start[s] doing the writing” (169). Greg gets tired of “Zoo-Wee Mama” and “let[s] Rowley take over the whole operation” (169), while Greg creates a new character, “Creighton the Cretin” (171), which is about a foolish character who makes stupid mistakes. Greg takes his comic to the office to submit it, but when he notices that there are some good cartoons in the pile, he slips the competition “under a pile of paperwork” (175) to better his chances of being chosen. Sometime later, Greg learns that his comic was chosen, but it is heavily edited by the school newspaper, and the comic strip is no longer funny and makes him look like the teacher’s pet. He decides that he “won’t be signing autographs anytime soon” (178).

Chapters 5-6 Analysis

Cracks begin to show in Greg and Rowley’s friendship. Rowley gave Greg a Big Wheel tricycle for Christmas, and instead of appreciating Rowley’s gift, Greg uses the Big Wheel to torture Rowley with a sadistic game of his own creation. Rowley, being a loyal friend and unwilling to say no to Greg, goes along with the game until Greg’s cruelty finally catches up to him. Even after Rowley breaks his hand, Greg takes no responsibility and feels no remorse for his role in the injury. Instead, he becomes jealous of Rowley’s newfound popularity. For Greg, Rowley’s friendship is not a priority, and his quest for popularity will always come before his friend. Greg lacks the ability to look inward and question his own behavior, and in his eyes he can do no wrong.

The cracks in their friendship begin to spread, and when Greg and Rowley are working on the cartoon for the school newspaper, Rowley seems to have finally had enough of Greg’s controlling behavior. When Greg insults Rowley’s writing and artistic abilities, Rowley packs up his stuff and leaves. The author uses this moment to hint that Rowley’s patience with Greg is wearing thin, and this idea will come to a head in Chapter 7. Greg’s idea for a cartoon is all about making fun of students at school while Rowley’s ideas are harmless and silly, which highlights a key difference between the two characters and how they see humor in the world.

The introduction of the school Safety Patrol highlights Greg’s desire for power but not responsibility. He is all too eager to join the force so he can reap the benefits of missing class, getting free hot chocolate, and bossing the kindergarteners around. However, Greg shows a lack of responsibility when he refuses to acknowledge a kindergartener who had an accident in his pants, and he allows his grades to start falling in Pre-Algebra because he has to miss class for the patrol. In the same vein, Greg kicks over Manny’s snowman during the snow day because he enjoys bullying those who are smaller and have less power than him. When Greg’s father punishes him by destroying the snowball that he and Rowley have been building, Greg feels no personal responsibility for what happened, and he is cruel to Rowley and starts a fight when Rawley points out his responsibility for the snowball’s destruction. Greg continues to take no accountability for his behavior, and it begins to erode his relationships with his friends and the adults in his life.