Books Like Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Why it worksThe same school year told by Greg's kind, oblivious best friend, so the reader sees Greg being awful while Rowley does not - which is the first time in the series a child gets to be ahead of the narrator. For a parent uneasy about Greg, this is the entry point that has a decent person at the centre.

Worth knowingOnly half funny if you already know Greg, so it is not a starting point despite being marketed as one. Same ATOS 5.0 reading level as the main series - the friendlier tone does not make the text easier.

Why it worksA fortune cookie tells Nate he will surpass all others today, and he spends one school day collecting detention slips trying to make it true. It is the Wimpy Kid read-alike with the easier text - ATOS 3.1 against Kinney's 5.2 - so a seven-year-old who wants a fat illustrated novel can actually read this one alone.

Worth knowing13,810 words is still a multi-week solo read. Nate is rude to teachers and the book is on his side about it; the detention-slip running joke rewards backchat. Published in the UK as Big Nate: The Boy with the Biggest Head in the World, which is the same book.

Why it worksTimmy runs a detective agency with a polar bear as his business partner and is wrong about absolutely everything, which the reader can see and he cannot. That gap is the joke, and it is a more sophisticated one than Wimpy Kid's - a child who has outgrown gross-out humour but still wants cartoons on every page lands here.

Worth knowingThe longest book in our database at 22,433 words. Timmy's mother has lost her job and cannot pay bills, a thread played straight underneath the comedy, and the polar bear is either imaginary or not - the book never settles it, which frustrates literal-minded readers.

Why it worksA pug keeps a diary in doodles, lists and speech bubbles while his owner builds a rocket for a school project. It is the diary format at a fifth of Wimpy Kid's length - 2,510 words - so a six-year-old who wants the book their older sibling has can have the same shape of book at their own level.

Worth knowingBaron von Bubbles the cat is a running antagonist and the joke depends on you disliking cats. Much slighter than it looks; 72 heavily illustrated pages.

Why it worksDory's older siblings refuse to play with her, so she has an imaginary monster friend, an imaginary villain and a fairy godmother, and the book takes all three completely seriously. The drawings are scribbly enough that a child believes Dory drew them, and the youngest-sibling frustration is the truest thing in this whole set.

Worth knowingThe line between Dory's imagination and the real world is deliberately never drawn, which a literal child finds unsettling rather than delightful. Her siblings are properly mean for most of the book.

Why it worksWritten as a mock instruction manual for washing a cat, complete with warnings, diagrams and footnotes explaining cat anatomy. The deadpan how-to voice is the joke, and the format means a child can read three pages, laugh, and stop - it does not need momentum the way a story does.

Worth knowingATOS 3.7 and the humour is verbal rather than visual, so it needs a stronger reader than the cartoon cover implies. There is a real chapter on cat hairballs, described in detail.

Why it worksA.J. hates school; his teacher claims she cannot read, write or add, so the class teaches her. Every chapter ends on a one-line gag and the class chants the title back on cue, which gives a newly independent reader a refrain to land on. There are 21 books in the first series, so a child who likes one has a year of reading queued up.

Worth knowingATOS 4.3 - harder than the cartoon cover suggests, and harder than Big Nate. The humour is broad and the title uses 'crazy' as an insult throughout, which some families will not want repeated.

Why it worksPhoebe skips a stone off a unicorn's head, is granted a wish, and wishes for the unicorn to be her best friend - who turns out to be magnificently vain. It is a newspaper-style comic strip collection, so the unit is four panels rather than a chapter, which suits a child who reads in two-minute bursts.

Worth knowingATOS 3.4 with a lot of dry, adult-shaped irony - Marigold's vanity jokes land better at eight than six. Being a strip collection, there is no plot to pull a reader through.

Why it worksTwo alligator secret agents travel by sewer and solve a case about an exploding cupcake. The whole book is built on puns a seven-year-old can just about get ('very sewer-ious'), which means the humour rewards reading the words rather than skipping to the pictures - the opposite of most graphic novels at this level.

Worth knowingAt 8,472 words and ATOS 3.3 this is over half again the length of Dog Man and a real step up; hand it over after Dog Man and Bad Guys, not before. The pun density is exhausting for an adult reading it aloud, and the plot has three threads a six-year-old will lose track of.