DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: NO BRAINER

Greg Heffley's school is falling apart — leaky ceilings, a curriculum that reads like it was put together by a spreadsheet — and the district's fix on the table is to close it, which is the setup Jeff Kinney uses for this Wimpy Kid book. Getting Greg and his classmates to actually organize and do something about it, instead of just complaining the way Greg complains about everything, turns into its own running joke, since a group of self-interested middle schoolers make famously bad organizers. Published by Abrams for ages 8 to 12, it's still built on the diary format that's kept this series going for years.

The school-closure plot gives Kinney a reason to poke at how absurd institutional decision-making can look from a kid's-eye view, and it works because the jokes come first and the mild social commentary rides along underneath rather than the other way around. Readers already attached to Greg's particular blend of self-pity and scheming get the same voice doing what it always does, just aimed at a bigger target than usual this time. This isn't a book that has to be read in order, so it works as someone's first Wimpy Kid book or their latest — either way, a fast, funny read for a kid who already recognizes school bureaucracy as its own special kind of ridiculous.