Wimpy Kid Author Hopes To Bring 'Little Bit Of Magic' With Plainville Bookstore

PLAINVILLE (CBS) – It's a new chapter for an old building that was an eyesore for years in a small Massachusetts town. It's been transformed into a beautiful bookstore. The man responsible is a local author who's a big hit with kids, and takes a lot of pride in his hometown.

"We've worked for this moment for about three years. So this is really a great day to open the building to the public," says bestselling author and Plainville resident, Jeff Kinney.

Kinney wrote the award winning "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series of books. He's now the proud owner of "An Unlikely Story" in downtown Plainville.

"In this building we have a bookstore, a cafe; upstairs we have a big function area. And on the third floor I'm going to have studio space where I'm going to work on my books," says Kinney.

The store is built on the site of the Old Falk's Market, which had become a boarded up blight, but was once crucial to the town.

"It's been a general store. It's been a pharmacy, a taxi stand, a tearoom. It was the nerve center of the community where people gathered and got to know one another, and we wanted to create something new that served the same purpose," Kinney says.

The store is cozy, welcoming and whimsical. "It's very nice," says Shane Macneil, an elementary school kid from Quincy. "I also got to meet Jeff Kinney which was another special experience," he says.

The store was built with a lot of reclaimed wood. The floors are from a Dorchester ice cream company and the ceiling from a Providence warehouse.

And it's bucking the trend of online book sellers and digital books. "I'm really excited to think that there might be a kid in Plainville that comes here and this bookstore changes their life. That they find something that really spurs them on to whatever they were going to become," says Kinney.

An Unlikely Story officially opens on Saturday, May 30th. "I'm really hoping that this building will provide a spark. Maybe encourage other people to take a risk and build in our downtown," Kinney says.

And fans of the Wimpy Kid books can also rejoice. Book 10 comes out in November.

Plainville's newest bookstore is located downtown at the corner of Route 1A and Bacon Street.

Jeff Kinney takes WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Dave Mager on a walking tour: