Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

At the start of the book, Greg Heffley explains how bad his summer vacation was in which after being signed up with the swim team without his consent, he had to deal with practice at 7:00 AM, being the worst swimmer on the team and his older brother Rodrick annoying him about a secret that Greg is trying to keep. After Rodrick puts him in the back of his van and finds every speed bump in town, he drops Greg off to school but Greg finds out he still has the Cheese Touch from last year. He fortunately gets away with passing it on to a new student named Jeremy Pindle.

It is clear that Greg and Rodrick were always nemeses, so Susan starts a "Mom Bucks" to get Greg and Rodrick to get along with each other. Rodrick, at first, mismanages the money on his heavy metal magazines, while Greg carefully and sensibly manages the cash. Rodrick has an upcoming science project that he would prefer to do on 'Gravity', but he clearly shows no effort or interest, and asks his family members to do it for him. Because Rodrick is sick, the parents leave Greg and Rodrick in charge of the house, thinking that Rodrick will not throw a party. However, Rodrick jumps off the couch and calls every friend of his, and then throws the party. He locks Greg in the basement, but after the party, he coerces Greg into helping him clean up by threatening to reveal his secret. They also swap the door in the bathroom with another one after seeing that someone wrote on it with a permanent marker. Dad discovers that the new door doesn't lock, but to Greg and Rodrick's relief, he does not realize that it has been replaced.

A month later, Greg notices Rowley has play money identical to that of "Mom Bucks" and takes it home to put under his mattress. When Greg fails to do his history homework, he must borrow an assignment from Rodrick and pay him $20,000 in Mom Bucks. Unfortunately, Greg realises on the bus that the assignment is very badly written, and is unable to turn in anything. On top of that, Susan finds out about this scheme when Rodrick tries to cash in the lot as down payment on a motorcycle, and as a result confiscates all of Greg's Mom Bucks, even his real ones. As a punishment, she makes him clean the entire garage, but Greg gets Rowley to help him do that very quickly.

After Thanksgiving, Rodrick's party is uncovered by a photo that Rodrick’s friend Bill accidentally took using Susan's camera (in which Rodrick is clearly visible), for which he is grounded for a month. Greg is accused of being an accomplice to Rodrick and is banned from playing video games for two weeks, even though he had nothing to do with the party.

Rodrick starts preparing for the talent show, despite being grounded. Eventually, Frank ends Rodrick's punishment two weeks early due to him listening to the band every single day driving him mad. After Greg accidentally injures Rowley by putting a dumbbell in a pillow that Rowley kicked as a prank during a sleepover, he is forced to perform in the talent show with a first-grader named Scotty Douglas, whom Rowley was partners with. They don't qualify, but Rodrick's band does. Rodrick, eager to continue to the talent show, hands in his Gravity science project early but is forced to redo it. Rodrick tries to tell his teacher clearly about it, but his teacher tells him that it was a fairly easy experiment, that it did not make clear sense and that the project did not meet multiple requirements.

Frank tries to persuade Rodrick to give up the show, but Rodrick insists on doing it so that he can send it to record label companies and bail out of school if he and Löded Diper get noticed. During the talent show, Rodrick has his band's performance taped so he can send it in order to fulfill his wishes, but the video is rendered useless after it is found that Mom (who was taping the video the whole time) had talked the whole time and everything she said was heard on the tape, infuriating Rodrick. When his band comes over to watch the talent show on TV for fragments of their performance, they see Rodrick's mom dancing on the stage, with the camera zoomed right in on her, which means Rodrick doesn't have anything to send to record label companies.

Rodrick accuses Greg for the incident and they get into a fight until their parents send them both to their own rooms. Later, Rodrick reveals what happened to Greg over the summer to his friends: When Greg says that, at Leisure Towers, the retirement home where their grandfather lives, Rodrick took Greg's diary and made a run for it, but tripped on a board game. Greg grabbed his diary, ran to the toilet and attempted to destroy it, but found out he was in the ladies bathroom. He could not find a way of leaving without being seen, and so stayed in the stall until he was eventually reported to the front desk as a suspected Peeping Tom and removed by security, which Rodrick saw on Grandpa's TV (which is always tuned to the security camera).

Nevertheless, Greg ends up getting popular for his actions because the story had gotten extremely twisted from going to the women's bathroom in the retirement home to invading the girls' locker room at Crossland High School. The book ends with Greg helping Rodrick with his science project for school called "Do Plants Sneeze?", due to him feeling sorry for the video of Löded Diper's performance at the talent show, which has become a worldwide internet sensation due to Susan dancing in it.

Rodrick Rules received positive reviews.[4] Positive attention was given to the book for its effective portrayal of Greg Heffley,[5] and for its humor.[6][7] The books' strategy of using illustrations as a means of exposition was also praised.[5]

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is the second book in a fourteen book series. The third, The Last Straw was released on January 13, 2009.[8]

Brad Simpson stated he anticipated a sequel movie if the first film was a success. "Our writing staff are writing a sequel right now, "Rodrick Rules," which would be based on the second book" ... "And, you know, we hope that the people to see a second movie, so that we are in position of going again right away and making another film. I certainly know that the fans would like to see all the books made into movies."[9]

Fox 2000 greenlit the sequel and Zachary Gordon returned as Greg Heffley.[10] Steve Zahn (Frank Heffley) and Rachael Harris (Susan Heffley) also returned. The film was directed by David Bowers and the screenplay was written by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah. Principal photography began in Vancouver in August 2010. A few new characters appeared in the film, including Peyton List as Holly Hills. The film was released on March 25, 2011.[11]