NYC Kids Attend Wimpy Kid Film Premiere
RSSBy Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 03/11/2010
Hundreds of students from the tri-state area traveled to New York City’s Ziegfeld Theater this week to attend the star-studded premiere of the long-awaited film adaptation of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Amulet, 2007).
Among those in attendance were more than 500 sixth graders from New Jersey’s Auten Road Intermediate School, who joined kids from other area public schools to walk the red carpet and rub elbows with Zach Gordon, who plays protagonist Greg Heffley, and Robert Capron, who portrays Greg’s naive friend Rowley.
Award-winning author Jeff Kinney, creator of the Wimpy Kids series and executive producer of the film, also was in attendance.
Following the screening, the film’s cast, Kinney, and Katherine Paterson, the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, fielded questions from the audience. The actors shared anecdotes about life on the set. When asked to comment on the importance of reading, Kinney said reading books like his can be a gateway to better books like those of Paterson.
In conjunction with the film’s March 19 release is the publication of The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary (Amulet, 2010), which chronicles the making of the film. Amulet has also created a downloadable teacher’s guide to go along with the book that promotes several higher level thinking skills. www.amuletbooks.com.
Also, today is the last day to enter the Wimpy Kid Sweepstakes, sponsored by SLJ, Amulet Books, Twentieth Century Fox, and NEA. The winning school will receive a sneak preview of the film on March 18th.
