Easy Model Railroad Wiring

That sounds painful. If you really want to re-create a pre-1995 method of controlling trains, Andy Sperandeo's Easy Model Railroad Wiring was probably the last/newest book to focus mostly on DC block wiring. Read it, and then you will both have a complete understanding of how to wire DC block control and realize that wiring DC block control is a pointless PITA and you'll get DCC.

I used to recommend it for people to understand how things were often done before the mid-1990's when command control wasn't the norm, but these days, I don't find block wiring terribly relevant other than at a very basic level for most people.