Wimpy Kid 5 due out in fall 2010

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The fifth volume in Jeff Kinney's internationally bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid children's series will be published on November 9, announced the books' US publisher Amulet on May 20. Kinney calls the forthcoming title "the lynchpin in the series."

"I feel like everything in the series has been leading up to the fifth book," says Kinney, "which is about change and the different ways Greg and his best friend, Rowley, deal with it. To me, this book is the lynchpin in the series, and I'm excited to be writing it."

The cover will be purple, which follows the red, blue, green, and yellow of the first four installments.

Previously installments in the series have been feted with noon-time release parties at bookstores, and the wimpy kid website - www.wimpykid.com - provides .pdf "event kits" for hosting home launch parties.

More than 32 million copies of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are currently in print in the US alone; the titles are also available in more than 30 countries around the world and repeatedly make bestseller lists in the US and UK. In 2009, Jeff Kinney was named one of TIME magazine's most influential people in the world, and in 2010 he was awarded a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award. A Wimpy Kid movie was released in March 2010, and a sequel is due out in March 2011.

http://www.wimpykid.com