My 5th grade, when I was between 10 and 11, was my breakout year.

I was at Potomac Landing Elementary School in Fort Washington, Maryland, where I had a teacher named Mrs Norton. She was a very matronly figure in her 60s and was not the model of a teacher you’d expect to resonate with a 5th-grade boy. But she was very special. I remember a sense of fun and a feeling that this person “got” me. I’d had a very grumpy teacher before, but Mrs Norton was a game-changer.

She could find a talent in a kid and then challenge them to push the boundaries of that talent. I was an exceptional artist. I’d draw scenes from The Hobbit, Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons - my family and classmates would marvel at them and I got lots of self-esteem from this feedback.

But Mrs Norton would take a look at the drawings and she would tell me what I could do better. She’d notice things like flaws in my planning of the drawings. She was the only person who would push me to be better than I was. Lots of my work ethic as an illustrator today was born in that classroom.

I’m not sure I’d have gone into humour if she hadn’t encouraged me to be funny in the classroom. She’d push me to extend my boundaries. I remember once, my classmates and I were planning a talent show. We’d made a snake out of some sheets we’d sewn together. We were wriggling around on the floor and the other kids were watching us, laughing. Mrs Norton walked in, took one look at us and said, “Remember, there’s a difference between laughing with and laughing at”. Then she walked out. So we abandoned the skit. We understood and saved ourselves lots of shame and notoriety. Her light touch - a simple sentence - has stuck with me.

Her talent for knowing what would make a child better was almost supernatural. There was a very quiet kid in the class called James who didn’t speak throughout the year. On the last day, Mrs Norton said: “James, you have five minutes to do whatever you want”. Without any hesitation, he stood up on the desk at the front and did a whole Groucho Marx-Charlie Chaplin routine. Then he sat down as if nothing had happened. I was stunned by that - not only that he had this in him but also that Mrs Norton could see it.

There’s a mash-up of school memories in all my books. My school years were full of special times - my best friend Ryan and I used to do lots of things together. It was the 1980s, so we played lots of console video games. But we had acres and acres of woods round our house, so we explored, building forts and dens.

We loved doing things like setting up magic shows for the neighbourhood. We once created a haunted house in the basement. We also got hold of some bamboo sticks and created elaborate fight routines. It was a classic, free childhood that was memorable and special.

The Wimpy Kid of my books has always been a flawed and imperfect guy. I definitely was - and still am - full of imperfections. But I think realistic fiction is great when you’re a kid, because you can see yourself in the characters.

Now, having spent so long exploring every nook and cranny of my childhood and my time at school, I look out at a crowd of kids and envy them for all the stories they have to tell.

Jeff Kinney is the author and illustrator of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and the creator of Poptropical World, an online play and learning resource for children available on iPhone and Android.