Wimpy Kid finds some love is in the air in book seven



 teaser image for the seventh book in Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid series

Romance is set to enter the world of Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley in the latest instalment of Jeff Kinney's smash hit series, which is due out in November.

The illustrated Wimpy Kid books, peppered with handwritten notes and cartoon illustrations, trace the daily trials and tribulations of computer game nerd Greg. The first novel, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, was voted best children's book of the decade by Blue Peter viewers earlier this month [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/01/wimpy-kid-harry-potter-blue-peter-poll], beating Harry Potter, while the sixth novel in the series, Cabin Fever, was the bestselling children's book of 2011 in the UK, spending eight weeks at number one and selling one copy every four seconds in its first week on sale.

With worldwide sales topping 75m copies to date, Puffin is predicting that the seventh book will be one of the bestselling titles of 2012. Its publication was announced yesterday by Kinney at the biggest annual event in children's publishing, the Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Little has been given away yet about the book's contents – even its title remains a secret – but a teaser image reveals that "love is in the air", while Kinney told publishers in Bologna that the storyline would centre around a school dance, and a love interest would enter the picture.

"I've only written about a third of it," he said. "And I haven't drawn a single picture yet. But it's all in my head and on my phone."

Fans of the series will be glad to know that the author has no plans of hanging up his pen just yet. "I'm still having a lot of fun with the books, and there are still a lot of stories to tell," he said in Bologna.

Alison Flood

guardian.co.uk