Diary of a Wimpy Kid & Dork Diaries: Same Book, Different Gender

As I read these kids' book series in alphabetical order, it just so happens that Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries are next to each other in my list.

That's probably a good thing because they are essentially the same book (I read the original in each series.) which makes it easy to compare them to each other.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid was published 2 years before Dork Diaries and is the better series (again, based my reading on just one book of each).

The wimpy kid in the title is pretty much a wimpy kid. He's a young lad in middle school. The dork isn't really a dork. She's pretty much a drama queen - though not the most dramatic one I've ever seen.

Since both are "handwritten" in diary style, there's not usually much printing on a page, especially when there's artwork. So you can read them rather quickly.

The Dork book has many dated (2009-ish) cultural references that don't make it quite as pertinent to youngsters even today, just 8 years later. Wimpy Kid avoids most, if not all, such references making it more timeless.

Both made it to the New York Times best seller list, which doesn't surprise me. I'm not sure Dork really deserves to be thought of as such a book.