The Essential Book for Young Lads

The Essential Book For Young Lads is a book that appeared in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School

Grandpa gave Greg this book while packing up items for his trip to Hardscrabble Farms. Greg said that the book was outdated, but he did not want to hurt his Grandpa feelings, decided to take the book with him during the camp. When Greg found out that the other group had raided his cabin to find Graham's snacks and using his baby wipes to clean up and tried to flush it in the toilet, causing it to clog, he flips through the pages and realized that the guys who had raided his cabin might have done them a huge favor, there was a ton of useless stuff, like how to make a Potato Radio out of household objects, and a ton of good stuff on surviving wildness, like how to identify poison ivy. There were also has a chapter on other outdoorsy things, like how to start a fire without matches. When Greg decided to try out some of the tricks from the book to see if this tricks worked. He led his group out to their campsite and he asked to borrow Emilio Mendoza's glasses and he focused a beam of sunlight onto a dry leaf which it was said to do in the book. Eventually, the leaf started smoking and caught fire. Greg and his group were so excited that this trick worked because they could make a fire without a help of an adult. But Greg and his group was a little carried away because he forgot to return Emilio's glasses which he was still holding, he hi-five his cabinnate named Jeffrey Swanson, breaking Emilio's glasses in the process which makes Emilio is blind as a bat without his glasses and smack right into the tree, makes him a little challenging for the rest of the trip. But when Greg and his cabinnates were getting ready to raid the girl's cabin to get a deodorant, Mr. Nuzzi came into his cabin to check on them. He was obvious that Greg and his cabinnates are up to no good, he left and came back with baby powder to sprinkle in a big circle around his cabin so that if they leave, their footprints will give them away. But Greg and his cabinnates were in panic that they will be trapped in their cabin for the rest of the night. But he remembered that a chapter from The Essential Book For Young Lads is called Hiding Your Numbers that could help which the anicent ninjas fools their enemies by hiding the number of footprints through stepping in the same footprints in a group and ambush pursers. Mr. Nuzzi had left his footprints in the baby powder as he spreads around. So Greg and his cabinates will have to follow his footprints so that he never know they left. But Mr. Nuzzi footprints is bigger than Greg and his cabinnates which is their problem. But luckily, Greg spots Mr. Jefferson's hiking boots he left under the bed, their prefect match. So Greg went first. He carefully steps into Mr. Nuzzi's footprints which is little hard so he made it out of the baby powder footprints. On page 204, Greg and his cabinnates will set up a shelter without Greg's Dad. Luckily, there was a chapter on how to build a waterproof lean-to shelter which they didn't need Greg's Dad to help. Eventually, the book was burned as firewood since Greg's group were getting desperate.

Known Activities

 * Potato Radio How-to guide
 * Hiding Your Numbers
 * How to build a waterproof lean-to shelter (mentioned but the pages for it are unseen) This activity is mentioned when Greg uses the book to instruct his cabin mates at Hardscrabble Farms to build a waterproof lean-to shelter.

Trivia

 * Greg used the book to instruct his cabin mates at Hardscrabble Farms to build a waterproof lean-to shelter. The page that Greg got the instructions for the shelter from are never shown.