Jeff Kinney at An Unlikely Story. All photos by Brigid Alverson.

"Diary of a Wimpy Kid" author Jeff Kinney’s bookstore, An Unlikely Story, had its genesis in a book and a building. The book was Bill Bryson’s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (Broadway Books, 2006), his memoir of growing up in the Midwest in the 1950s. “His conclusion was that life was better then because every town had its own flavor and the communities were stronger,” Kinney says. “I was really inspired by reading that book and wanted to create that kind of a feeling.” The building that now houses Kinney’s bookstore was previously a broken-down general store on the main street of Kinney’s adopted hometown of Plainville, MA, that had been slowly deteriorating for 17 years, since its last owner, storekeeper and town benefactor Merrill Falk, passed away. Kinney and his wife, Julie, bought the building, tore it down, and replaced it with a three-story structure that houses not only a bookstore and café but an event space that is already home to a weekly storytime, workshops, and a coffeehouse night. Authors Kazu Kibuishi, Dav Pilkey, and Lincoln Peirce are making personal appearances there this fall, and minicomics artist Cara Bean held a workshop there recently. The still unfinished third floor will accommodate Kinney’s studio. He says that visitors will be able to come up to watch him work, and he plans to have a monitor that displays whatever he is drawing on his digital tablet.

There’s nothing like a bookstore

Kinney draws on his digital tablet.

When the Kinneys first bought the building, they weren’t quite sure what to do with it, but they did know they wanted to make something special. “That was the first and most important step,” Kinney says, “was to make sure that we were creating a building that was iconic and represented the town well.” When it came time to decide what to put in it, though, a bookstore was an easy choice. “I can’t think of anything better than a bookstore,” he said. Plainville, which has a population of about 8,000 and sits between Providence, RI, and Boston, already has a used bookstore that carries a limited number of new books. Kinney’s vision was more expansive: the building would not only house the bookstore but also serve as a central gathering place for the community. “The people who were advising us said [that] for the bookstore to succeed it really had to be a destination,” says Kinney. “I read that as 'It had to be a destination because of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid,"' and that made me nervous, because I knew if we overdid that, it wouldn’t be embraced by people in our town and surrounding towns. So what we tried to do instead was make it a destination in terms of the feel and the quality of the building.”

A closer look

The store's ceiling features spread books.

Like many bookstores, An Unlikely Story has a cheery ambiance, comfy chairs, and books arranged by topic—including a “Wimpy Kid” section. But it also has been carefully designed to create a strong sense of unique place. Antique-looking signs, each representing a different business that occupied the site in the past (“Johnnie’s Luncheonette,” “Plainville Pharmacy,” “I.G.A. Stores”), are displayed on the upper walls. Books hang from the ceiling, their pages opened like wings, streaming across the store to the children’s section, where they mingle with ornate Quidditch broomsticks—all a nod to the way that adults and children come together over books, Kinney says. Still to come is a three-and-a-half-foot tall bronze sculpture of Scrooge McDuck, Kinney’s favorite comic character when he was a child, created by sculptor Allyson Vought. He has also commissioned Vought to create a statue of Greg Heffley, the title character of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series. The building is environmentally friendly and uses reclaimed materials. The wooden floor, for instance, came from an ice cream factory in Rhode Island. Remnants of the bookstore building’s former life include the Falk’s General Store sign and wooden fruit bins that now hold gifts in the bookstore. The original front porch runs across the front of the building, and photos of the old store decorate the rear wall of the elevator. Kinney relies on his staff to handle the day-to-day operation of the store, but he clearly enjoys being involved. On a recent weekday, he took a few minutes to eyeball a sign that was being hung over the back entrance and stroll through the store, stopping to chat with fans. He has been working on the 10th “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book since the store opened May 29, 2015, but once that is turned in, he hopes to spend more time on the sales floor, perhaps even running the cash register.

The entrance to the store.

A sense of community

Kinney grew up in Maryland, and for most of his childhood, there wasn’t a bookstore in his town. When one finally opened, the experience was transformative. “In the short time the bookstore was there, maybe three years, I found my own interests,” he says. “I got interested in computer programming and working on comic strips and fantasy books. I read Piers Anthony and Terry Brooks. Those things came from that bookstore we had—and then it went away.” Now he wants to re-create what he lost. “If this place inspired one kid to be a reader, that might be enough for me to make the whole investment worth it,” he said. “One time I was sitting in Don’s Diner, which is right down the street, and I saw some kids run by….  They all seemed really happy, and they were each carrying a book that they had gotten from here, and it was so exciting, so validating—it’s like, the decisions we made created that situation.” There’s more to An Unlikely Story than books, however. “A bookstore is just a vehicle to bring the community together,” Kinney says. “I have seen so many connections made in this store that wouldn’t have been made otherwise. There was no venue for these connections to be made, and a bookstore is a perfect place to make them.” Although Kinney insists that the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” titles aren’t the bookstore’s sole draw, he acknowledges that he wouldn’t have been able to build it without their success. And the fact that people are coming from all over the country, as well as nearby, has a lot to do with his popularity. Kinney takes the long view, though. “Sometimes people will say I’m the owner of the building, but especially after coming to understand the history of the building, I have learned that nobody is really the owner of the building,” he says. “At best, you are a custodian.” Pulling up a photo of a previous owner on his phone, Kinney said, “He’s just standing on the front corner, as proud as can be. I reflect on that picture sometimes and think that that’s who I am today, and who knows who it will be tomorrow, and who knows what this will be in the future. The thing I do know is that this building will outlast me.”