An entertaining, instructive novel about a kid-driven business.
A boy learns about math and entrepreneurship when he launches a pool-cleaning business.
In this debut middle-grade novel, Chance Sterling has his sights set on earning enough money to buy a new bike. Since his dad pays him $10 a week to clean the family’s pool, Chance is looking at months of work before he reaches his goal—and that’s if he stops treating himself to ice cream and other indulgences. Chance decides to turn pool cleaning into a business, finding other customers in his neighborhood. He slowly builds his client base, goes into partnership with his sister, Addison—who was thinking of competing with him by starting her own pool-cleaning business,—and stocks up on equipment. Chance runs into problems at every turn, and with his dad’s advice, he learns about customer acquisition costs, profit margins, employee management, and lots of math. Although the story follows a coherent plot, it’s as much a teaching tool as a novel, with the math shown in detail for each of Chance’s calculations (for instance, he determines how much more quickly he will reach his goal after adding a second client). A series of questions at the end of each chapter encourages readers to assess Chance’s decision-making (“How would things be different with a partner? What adjustments would you have to make?”). The text itself is also full of teaching moments; Chance’s dad explains how to find vendors, calculate profit, and conduct market research. Many of the business developments fit smoothly into the book’s plot, like when Chance subcontracts pool-cleaning jobs to his friend Amit and then has a difficult conversation when Amit’s performance isn’t satisfactory. Searfoss is generally a strong writer, with a talent for revealing Chance’s tendency toward melodrama (he refers to himself as an “impoverished ten-year-old” when bemoaning how long it will take to afford the new bike), so readers who pick up the book for lessons in entrepreneurship will find it highly readable.
An entertaining, instructive novel about a kid-driven business.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-67-241141-7
Page Count: 125
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)
In this delightfully spare narrative in verse, Coretta Scott King Award–winning Grimes examines a marriage’s end from the perspective of a child.
Set mostly in the wake of her father’s departure, only-child Gabby reveals with moving clarity in these short first-person poems the hardship she faces relocating with her mother and negotiating the further loss of a good friend while trying to adjust to a new school. Gabby has always been something of a dreamer, but when she begins study in her new class, she finds her thoughts straying even more. She admits: “Some words / sit still on the page / holding a story steady. / … / But other words have wings / that wake my daydreams. / They … / tickle my imagination, / and carry my thoughts away.” To illustrate Gabby’s inner wanderings, Grimes’ narrative breaks from the present into episodic bursts of vivid poetic reminiscence. Luckily, Gabby’s new teacher recognizes this inability to focus to be a coping mechanism and devises a daily activity designed to harness daydreaming’s creativity with a remarkably positive result for both Gabby and the entire class. Throughout this finely wrought narrative, Grimes’ free verse is tight, with perfect breaks of line and effortless shifts from reality to dream states and back.
An inspirational exploration of caring among parent, teacher and child—one of Grimes’ best. (Poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59078-985-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
