COLUMBUS — Confetti, costumed characters and a surprise guest turned an ordinary assembly at Oakland Park Elementary School into a celebration of reading on Tuesday, October 27, when “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” author Jeff Kinney walked onto the school’s stage, Columbus City Schools reported.
The visit honored a school where enthusiasm for books is already running high. Oakland Park earned the Columbus City Schools Outstanding Library Award for 2026 after its roughly 300 students recorded 21,604 library book checkouts last year — more than any other school in the district, according to Columbus City Schools.
For students, meeting the author behind a favorite series was the highlight. “The ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ books are really fun to read,” student Alexander Turner said in Columbus City Schools’ account of the visit. Classmate Aviyah Harvey said in the district’s account that she likes the books because they are funny and “understandable,” and connected Greg Heffley’s troubles to characters in another favorite series, “The Baby-Sitters Club.”
Mary Eberlin, Oakland Park’s library instructional assistant, is in her 28th year at the school and helps students discover what interests them in the library. “The fact that he was on our stage talking to [our students] and interacting with their principal and with their library lady, it just — it was amazing,” Eberlin said in Columbus City Schools’ account.
Kinney told the students, in Columbus City Schools’ account, that when he asked how many had read his books, “just about every kid raised their hand,” adding, “So it feels really good.” He used the visit to encourage the young readers to become storytellers themselves. “I really want to make sure kids feel inspired to tell their own stories,” Kinney said in the district’s account. “I think that every kid’s story needs to be told.”
District educators say an author visit gives students another reason to reach for a book: they have met the person whose imagination put the characters on the page, and it can help them imagine becoming writers, too. Eberlin urges students to give unfamiliar books a chance, knowing that finding a favorite can take some exploring. “When a kid comes in, a student comes into me and says, I loved this book, it just makes my heart so happy,” Eberlin said in Columbus City Schools’ account.
Kinney closed with a hope for the Oakland Park readers. “I hope these kids will keep reading,” he said in Columbus City Schools’ account. “It’s really the best thing. It makes them interesting and vibrant and empathetic.” For a school that checked out more than 21,000 library books in a year, the visit landed as both a reward and a reminder of why those books matter.
Photo: Shixart1985, CC BY