Parents' Guide to

Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories

By Carrie R. Wheadon, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Mild scares and laughs for Wimpy Kid fans.

Book Jeff Kinney Graphic Novel 2021
Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Community Reviews

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age 6+

Based on 3 parent reviews

Lebron12James3
Lebron12James3 Parent
December 10, 2021
age 2+

Beautiful

scarlettthedragonmaster
scarlettthedragonmaster Adult
May 21, 2021
age 7+

reader beware you have been warned

I got this book for my birthday and read it for five days and it was quite a nice book and I would give it 3 and a half but I can’t do the half thing on the star rating some stories were better than others and one of my favourite stories was the Demon and I could tell Greg was just acting like he was possessed by a demon some of the stories like the changing had a few tiny unexpected near endings the title I chose might have been a bit misleading because these stories aren’t exactly terrifying not like goosebumps anyway but this was a good book and probably my favourite in the rowley series but Cabin fever still my favourite from Jeff Kinney when it comes to the actual diary of a wimpy kid series when it comes to Greg stories and for those of you complaining about what the stories are like remember rowley did write these in there world
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What's the Story?

In ROWLEY JEFFERSON'S AWESOME FRIENDLY SPOOKY STORIES, Wimpy Kid Greg's friend Rowley tries his hand at telling short horror stories. Fourteen tales feature a young werewolf, a prankster who gets pranked, a boy whose friend comes back as a chatty ghost, a girl whose parents think she's a vampire, a boy who's just a head who befriends the headless horseman and together they ask a girl to a school dance, an airport scanner that turns everyone into skeletons, a boy who thinks he lives in the middle ages, a grandma who napped so soundly that her family buried her, a fibbing boy haunted by an ice cream stain, an unpopular mummy taken to court by a popular mummy for copyright infringement, a boy named Frankenstein with a very curious science fair experiment, a boy tempted by his parents' forbidden medicine cabinet, and a town trying to find a way to live amicably with invading zombies. It ends with Rowley telling a story he's sure is the honest truth, about that time his friend Greg got possessed by a demon, messed up his house, and ate all his food.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (3):
Kids say (6):

Scary stories are all in the telling, and when Wimpy Kid Greg's sweet and innocent friend Rowley tells them, expect them to be mild enough for young readers and mildly funny. There are none of the outrageous Wimpy Kid-level antics here, except when a grandma is buried alive (it ends fine!) and the last story of 14, when Greg convinces Rowley that he, Greg, has been possessed by a demon. Because it's Rowley's perspective, Rowley is 100 percent convinced it happened, which makes it uncomfortably funny if you're the sort to wish Rowley had much nicer friends. Poor kid. Hints of friendship woes return in the story "Ghost Friend," where a boy's BFF comes back as a ghost and makes life miserable for him.

By far the oddest story is the one where one mummy sues another for copyright infringement. How would Rowley, our naive narrator, know what this is? The story with the funniest twists and turns is "The Invasion," in which a town handles a zombie invasion in a refreshing way. Overall, kids will have fun with the variety of tales and standard horror characters in Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories, and tehy may even be inspired to imagine some of their own to tell around the campfire.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about perspective in the last story in Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, titled "The Demon." How does Rowley tell the story? How would Wimpy Kid Greg tell it?

  • Is Greg a good friend to Rowley? What about the ghost in the story "Ghost Friend"? What happens to the boy later in life who always follows along with his friend?

  • Which of these horror characters -- werewolves, vampires, mummies, zombies, ghosts, etc. -- have you read about or seen before? Where? Which are totally new?

  • Are you interested in reading more scary stories? How scary do you like your stories? When are they too scary for you?

Book Details

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