Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever (Book 6) recap

Broke before the holidays, Greg tries a string of money-making schemes ending in a holiday bazaar he and Rowley promote with a homemade banner - which bleeds ink onto the school wall and leaves Greg convinced the police are after him. Then a massive snowstorm buries the house and knocks out the power, trapping Greg, his mother, and his brothers inside for days over Christmas while his father is away. Supplies dwindle, tempers fray, and the family discovers Manny flipped the breakers so only his own room had power. When the storm clears and life resumes, the school-damage scare Greg dreaded all month amounts to far less than he feared, and the household returns to normal.

Previously: Greg Heffley has kept up his journal through the ups and downs of middle school - the schemes, the on-again-off-again friendship with Rowley, and the daily friction with his brothers Rodrick and Manny at home. As winter approaches, he is as short of money and long on plans as ever.

With the holidays coming, Greg is broke and tries scheme after scheme to raise money, ending with a holiday bazaar he and Rowley promote themselves. The promotion is their undoing: a banner they put up against the school runs in the wet and stains the wall, and when word spreads that the police have taken an interest in the damage, Greg convinces himself he is a wanted criminal. The dread of being found out follows him everywhere as the weather closes in.

A huge snowstorm buries the neighbourhood and knocks out the power, trapping Greg, his mother, and his brothers in the house for days while his father is away - with supplies running low, tempers fraying, and Christmas arriving mid-blackout. Along the way the family discovers that Manny has flipped the circuit breakers so that only his own room has power, punishment for nobody having taught him to tie his shoes. The family makes do, celebrates what Christmas it can, and digs out when the storm finally passes. School life resumes, and the school-damage affair that terrorized Greg all December comes to far less than he feared. The book ends with the household back to normal and Greg's record, as far as he is concerned, intact.

The book ends with the storm over and the panic deflated. The blizzard trapped Greg, his mother, Rodrick, and Manny in a powerless house for days across Christmas, with Greg's father away; the low point turned comic when Manny was found to have flipped the circuit breakers so that only his room had electricity, his revenge for never being taught to tie his shoes. The family made do through the blackout and dug itself out when the weather broke. Back in ordinary life, the school-wall damage that Greg had built up into a police matter comes to far less than his imagination promised, and the fear that drove the whole book dissolves. The Heffleys end the winter intact and unchanged, ready for the next instalment.