Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Plot

The book starts with Greg Heffley describing how he is more of an "indoor person" and will spend his summer vacation playing video games; unfortunately, his mother Susan stops him, saying he has better things to do. Greg and his friend Rowley go to Rowley's country club after school closes for the summer, but after a few weeks, Greg is not invited to return because he complains about even the most minor things, much to his disappointment. Greg doesn't want to go to the town pool with Susan and his little brother, Manny, because of the shower area he has to walk through to get there.

Rowley and his father arrive at the Heffley's house, informing Susan that Greg and Rowley have a bill for $83 worth of fruit smoothies at the country club. Both boys decline to pay, saying they were unaware they would be charged and it would be unfair to do so, but Susan and Rowley's father disagree, so Greg and Rowley start a lawn care service called the "V.I.P. Lawn Care Service", but the job is a fiasco since the boys have not used a lawn mower before.

During Greg's birthday party, Susan confiscates some of his money to pay Rowley's dad's smoothie bill from the country club. Greg also gets a Ladybug, a cell phone that can only make emergency and home calls. He then discovers his uncle Joe's dog "Killer" eating half of his birthday cake. Feeling bad for how the party turned out, Susan takes Greg to the mall next day to get a makeup gift and brings Rodrick and Manny along as well. They walk around the mall until they end up in the pet store. Greg gets an angelfish, while Rodrick gets a pet piranha, which he neglects, and Manny buys fish food, which he later eats as a snack. After a trip to the water park, Greg finds that the piranha, which Susan put in Greg's bowl because she thought Rodrick's bowl was disgusting due to him not cleaning it, ate his angelfish while they were gone, upsetting Greg.

When Frank learns at a Father's Day lunch that his father accidentally ran over his dog, Nutty, when he was young, and then lied about him running away to a butterfly farm, he goes to get a new dog to cope with the loss. The family named him Sweetheart, also known as Sweetie, who causes significant problems for Greg's summer. Greg and his mom meet Rowley's family at the supermarket, where they buy groceries for their family vacation to the beach. Mrs. Jefferson invites Greg to the beach, to which his mom agrees; Greg finally gets to ride the Cranium Shaker, a ride he wanted to go on at the boardwalk, but it ends in disaster when Greg hits Rowley's arm with a rubber band.

After this incident, Greg is afraid that his dad will sell him to an orphanage, and he calls the police with his Ladybug phone. After a long talk with the police, Frank gives the cops tickets to a baseball game to repay them for their trouble; Susan is disappointed because she bought the tickets so Frank and Greg could spend time together. It also turned out that phone call was that Frank was giving Sweetie to Grandma. After hearing about a video game competition, Greg and Rowley decide to camp in front of the game store, thinking it'll be where the competition will be, but Rowley injures Greg's hand by smashing it with a mallet, forcing Greg to quit the competition. At the end of the summer, Greg regrets not staying at home and playing video games throughout the summer, and reflects that he has not seen Rowley since the day of the video game competition, and that his father hasn't talked to him after Greg nearly got him arrested, but when they read the comic "Li'l Cutie", whose creator retired and passed it to his son, they think things will be okay. When Mom puts the photos from the summer in her scrapbook, labeling it "Best Summer Ever", Greg views it as the opposite, but knew that "the one who takes the photos is the one who gets to tell the story".

Adaptations