Meeting Jeff Kinney at the Dubai Lit Fest

The past weekend kicked off the 11th Annual Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, and fortunately, my family and I had the chance to attend one of the sessions at the InterContinental Hotel Dubai Festival City. Even though it was already sold out, one of my good friends managed to give us tickets for Jeff Kinney’s session. Yup, he’s the famous author behind the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. I didn’t tell my daughters where we going that evening because I wanted it to be a surprise. It was only when we were standing and waiting in the queue to enter the hall when they finally asked why we were there and I told them. Caila loves the Wimpy Kid books and Jeff Kinney is her favourite author, so you can guess she was ecstatic with my news. She actually had to ask me twice if she would really get to see the bestselling author.

Since it was my first time to attend a session at the Dubai Lit Fest, I didn’t know what was going to happen. All I knew was the author would be there and talk about his books, and later there would be a book signing. I was only partly correct, because what I thought would happen just sounds boring.

The session, entitled The Meltdown Show, was actually very informative and entertaining. Since majority of the audience were kids (well, tweens and teenagers), Jeff made the session more of an interactive one with the use of a spinning wheel to choose what the activities would be.

There was a quiz contest between two mother and daughter teams, a chance for kids to try to stump the Wimpy Kid author with questions about his famous series, a timed question and answer portion where kids from the audience had the chance to ask the American cartoonist questions, a dance battle of mommies from the audience (much to the delight and embarrassment of several kids), a part where Jeff showed how he drew his characters and invited another kid to copy him, a snowball fight, and many more. It was a really fun session which made everyone want to participate.

Before we knew it, the session was over and it was time for the book signing. Unfortunately, as much as we all wanted it to be organized, there were still many people in the audience who just wouldn’t follow the instructions and just went ahead to queue even though their row wasn’t called yet. Oh well. With 800 people, what else would you expect? Since there were so many people, you can guess it took a really long time (about an hour and 20 minutes in total) for Caila and Sophie to get their books signed. Of course they complained. But when I told them that if they continued to do so, we would leave and they could say goodbye to the chance for an autographed book, they stopped. 

Finally, finally, it was their turn, and our girls rushed towards a smiling Jeff Kinney, ready with their books opened and their names written on a sticker to ease the process. 

I guess those few seconds was enough for the two to regain their energy because as soon as we exited the room, they were practically jumping with glee with wide smiles on their faces.

It was almost 9pm by the time we left the hotel, and since we were starving, we headed to the Foodcourt of Dubai Festival City Mall for something to eat. Sometime later, who would I see but Mr. Wimpy Kid himself, walking around and trying to decide what he would be having for dinner. Since we had already finished eating, we gathered our things and walked quickly towards the counter where he was placing an order. As soon as we saw him step away, showing that he was just going to wait for his food, I approached Jeff Kinney, told him we had enjoyed his session and asked if we could take a picture with him. Honestly, I would have understood if he didn’t want to because it was late and he was hungry and tired (who wouldn’t after signing hundreds of books?!), but to our delight, he obliged and even thanked us for attending.

Caila was absolutely thrilled when she saw how nice he was! She couldn’t stop smiling and saying over and over “I met my favourite author! He signed my book and I have pictures with him!” It was a perfect way to cap off her birthday week.

Thanks, Jeff Kinney! You made our eldest's 10th birthday very memorable for her.