Gordo is feeling a little left behind: the girls are going crazy over Ethan Craft, who gets a new dirtbike for his 14th birthday, just like all the ""men"" in his family have. Even Larry Tudgeman is shaving now, though not very well! Gordo now wishes he had celebrated his bar mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony performed on the 13th birthday that marks the passage of a boy into manhood. Concerned about what makes a boy a man, Gordo takes his camera interviews many different men to get their experiences. He tries several different ""manly"" things that they mentioned, even going to a tattoo parlor! But he decides they are not for him. He asks his parents why they didn't insist on a bar mitzvah for him. They tell him they trusted his judgment then, and that at the time he didn't think it was necessary or important. But Gordo has made up his mind now--he wants to be bar mitzvahed. The ceremony is held with all his family and friends in attendance.

Lizzie and her mom become best friends after reading a book in social studies.