When snow closes Greg Heffley's middle school, he and his best friend, Rowley Jefferson, face a fight for survival as warring gangs turn the neighborhood into a wintry battlefield.

The pressure's really piling up on Greg Heffley. His mom thinks video games are turning his brain to mush, so she wants her son to put down the controller and explore his creative side. As if that s not scary enough, Halloween's just around the corner and the frights are coming at Greg from every angle. When Greg discovers a bag of gummy worms, it sparks an idea. Can he get his mom off his back by making a movie . . . and will he become rich and famous...

While trying to find a new best friend after feuding with Rowley, middle-school slacker Greg Heffley is warned by older family members that adolescence is a time to act more responsibly and to think seriously about his future.

School property has been vandalized and Greg Heffley swears he is innocent--sort of. Just as the authorities are about to pin him down a freak blizzard hits, trapping the Heffleys in their home and leaving Greg to wonder whether being stuck with his family for the holidays really is better than facing the punishment he knows is coming when the snow is gone.

"From the imagination of Rowley Jefferson comes an adventure of epic proportions. Join Roland and his best friend, Garg the Barbarian, as they leave the safety of their village and embark on a quest to save Roland's mom from the White Warlock. Will our heroes survive? Find out in Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure!" --

In his first journal, middle schooler Rowley Jefferson, Greg Heffley's sidekick, records his experiences and misguided decision to write a biography of Greg, who, in his own mind, is destined to become rich and famous.

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

"When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life"--OCLC.