I'm not surprised that the series is still popular. The style is engaging and funny and the sort of thing to sweep a kid up and keep them reading. I just-- I'm not generally into Lessons or Morals for novels aimed at kids, but I really desperately wanted the main character to get beyond the point of being completely surprised every time something he did actually had consequences.
Which is me having been in my 40s when I read the first one and therefore very much Not the Right Audience. I simply felt that I had to talk with my then six year old daughter when she read them to make sure she saw the connections between what the character did and what happened to him. The connections are there, but it's a breezy, first person narrative by a character who never sees how the things making him miserable result from things he chose to do.
The chances are that kids reading the books do spot the connections, but the character never stops digging.
It's a pretty common form of humor, but I loathe it equally in Looney Tunes or teen comedies where the character stumbles from humiliation to humiliation. I'd be a terrible audience for Punch and Judy or Commedia dell'Arte. A lot of not-me people find that sort of thing funny rather than horrifying.
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Which is me having been in my 40s when I read the first one and therefore very much Not the Right Audience. I simply felt that I had to talk with my then six year old daughter when she read them to make sure she saw the connections between what the character did and what happened to him. The connections are there, but it's a breezy, first person narrative by a character who never sees how the things making him miserable result from things he chose to do.
The chances are that kids reading the books do spot the connections, but the character never stops digging.
It's a pretty common form of humor, but I loathe it equally in Looney Tunes or teen comedies where the character stumbles from humiliation to humiliation. I'd be a terrible audience for Punch and Judy or Commedia dell'Arte. A lot of not-me people find that sort of thing funny rather than horrifying.