Double Down is the 11th book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The books have been published at a rate of roughly one book per year since 2007. They are aimed at a middle-grade audience and are consistent in tone and structure. Greg Heffley is the protagonist of all of the books, though there are also spinoffs from Rowley Jefferson’s perspective. Although the books ostensibly take place over the course of several school years, their actual chronology is unclear as Greg is always in middle school and does not seem to change or age in obvious ways. There is continuity among the books despite Greg’s static nature: Double Down briefly references the Cheese Touch, a plot point from the original Diary of a Wimpy Kid novel. It also includes the family’s pig, which only joins the story’s canon in The Long Haul, the series’s ninth book. 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is an extraordinarily successful series. In fact, it has been outsold by only three other book series: J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps books (which are the inspiration for the Spineticklers stories in Double Down), and Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels.