A vanilla-flavored tale with a built-in community-service message that may encourage youthful entrepreneurial efforts—or at...
Nicholas’ family has so many blueberries that they hardly know what to do. The bear in the backyard only complicates the situation!
Nicholas has been taking care of the Preston blueberry bushes for a long time, and he has been setting out pails of berries for the bear every summer. He hopes he’s made a deal with the bear: if he provides berries, the bear won’t take them from the bushes. But there are too many berries for his family to pick on their own. At first, he invites the neighbors to pick some, and the next summer, he invites his class to help. He sells lots of the extra berries everyone has helped pick in order to raise money for the new rubber mats for the local playground. His admirable hard work and generosity result in Nico’s being named the town’s “Top Businessman of the Year.” Tuchman’s pleasant, cartoonlike grayscale illustrations depict an evidently largely white community, though at least one bystander is depicted wearing the hijab. These illustrations (many of them representing Nico’s various signs) break up pages that each feature several paragraphs of text. There is little character development in this tale and not much in the way of conflict, making this effort feel more like a very long early reader rather than an early chapter book. It ends with a teaser for the next in the series.
A vanilla-flavored tale with a built-in community-service message that may encourage youthful entrepreneurial efforts—or at least kindness to bears. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943978-29-8
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Persnickety Press
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
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