THE TOOTHPASTE MILLIONAIRE

A distant cousin of Easy Reader, Rufus Mayflower might be called Easy Entrepreneur, or Easy Adder since his idea for manufacturing cutrate toothpaste generates so many arithmetic problems that Mr. Conti's class is renamed Toothpaste I. As ""Prepared by the Bank Street College of Education,"" Merrill's step-by-step plan for a kid's toothpaste empire demonstrates a lot more ingenuity (not to mention math spin-offs) than one would expect in a school reader. But character, plot and pace (the bombing of Rufus' factory by Organized Crime is thrown in just by way of a wrap up) are so minimal that Rufus' chances of turning a profit outside the classroom are slim.