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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Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary: “March”

In March, Rowley is called down to the office and accused of “‘terrorizing’ the kindergarteners when he was supposed to be walking them home from school” (179). Greg explains to the reader that last week he had to walk the kindergarteners home by himself while Rowley was taking a quiz. Greg notes that “[i]t had rained that morning, and there were lots of worms on the sidewalk” (180), so he chased the kindergarteners with the worms. A woman in the neighborhood thought that Greg was Rowley because Greg “was borrowing [Rowley’s] coat” (181), and she threatened to call the principal and report him. Greg “forgot about the whole thing” (181), but Rowley is suspended from Patrols for a week and has to apologize to the kindergarteners. Greg knows he should tell the truth and get Rowley off the hook, but he knows “[he’d] lose [his] hot chocolate privileges” (182) if he did confess. Greg decides to “let Rowley take one for the team this time around” (183), but he does tell Rowley what happened.

He encourages Rowley to “[b]e careful about who [he] lend[s] [his] coat to” (184), and Rowley decides to go home and take a nap instead of hanging out with Greg. The next day, Greg is called into the office and relieved of his Safety Patrol duties because an “anonymous source” has come forward and named Greg as the “real culprit in the worm-chasing incident” (186). Greg is annoyed that Rowley betrayed him and decides he needs to “give [his] friend a lecture about loyalty” (187). Rowley is promoted, and he starts giving Greg the cold shoulder. Greg doesn’t understand why Rowley would be upset with him, and he keeps trying to get Rowley to talk to him.

Chapter 8 Summary: “April”

In April, Rowley is still giving Greg the cold shoulder, and Rowley starts hanging out with Collin Lee. Greg is jealous and says that “Collin is supposed to be [Greg’s] backup friend” (190), and he notices that Collin is spending the night at Rowley’s house. Greg is so desperate to get back at Rowley that he decides to invite himself to spend the night at Fregley’s house. However, “things [start] to get out of hand” (193) when Fregley eats all of Greg’s jellybeans, becomes lost in a sugar high, and chases Greg around with a booger. Greg escapes from Fregley’s house in the middle of the night. After a month of Greg and Rowley being “ex-friends” (196), Greg decides to focus his efforts on making it to the Class Favorites page of the school yearbook. He figures that if he can make it to the Class Favorites page, he will be popular forever. He decides that he should try to be Class Clown, because even though he isn’t known for being particularly funny, he thinks that he can “pull off one big prank right before voting” (200).

Chapters 7-8 Analysis

The events of March and April signal the break in Greg and Rowley’s friendship. After months of being bullied, manipulated, and mistreated by Greg, Rowley reaches his breaking point when he realizes that Greg allowed him to take the fall for his own bullying behavior because Greg cared more about his own hot chocolate privileges than keeping his friend out of trouble. Rowley is an honest, kind, innocent kid, who holds himself to a high standard of conduct, and when his good name is sullied by Greg’s actions, Rowley decides that he doesn’t need a friend like Greg pulling him down. This comes as a shock to Greg, who always thought he was the one doing Rowley a favor by being his friend, and at first Greg doesn’t consider the loss of Rowley’s friendship to be a big deal. In fact, Greg calls Rowley “dead weight” that was holding him back from reaching his true potential in popularity.

However, Greg soon realizes that his antics have left him completely friendless. While Rowley quickly makes other friends and seems genuinely happier without Greg in his life, Greg is forgotten and left with no one to hang out with except Fregley. Greg still refuses to acknowledge that he did anything wrong, and he places all the blame of their falling out on Rowley. Although Greg thought he was more popular than Rowley, he failed to see that Rowley’s friendly, genuine demeanor made him quite popular at school. Greg’s vindictive, self-centered behavior has isolated him from everyone, and now as the school year draws to a close, he finds himself scrambling to make a name for himself. Even now, Greg’s plans to achieve popularity involve mocking a substitute teacher to get a big laugh and be named Class Clown. Greg believes that to lift himself up, he has to put others down, which might be why he doesn’t have many friends.