[LISTENED TO: March 11, 2013] The Get Rich Quick Club
I grabbed this audio book because I knew we were taking a longish trip and I wanted something for the kids to listen to. It’s hard to find a book that both a 7-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl will enjoy (although truth be told, T. and C. are up for just about any story as long as the language isn’t too hard–nevertheless, I try to find stuff that’s age appropriate. (Which means that the stories I’m excited for them to enjoy are about two years off yet) . The library has a great online resource (Listen NJ) but the search features are awful–it’s really hard to search by age and it’s also hard to find stories that are a good length (2 hours or so). There’s so many that are 8 hours or 8 minutes.
But anyhow, I knew that Dan Gutman was a fun author (C. loves the whole My Weird School series) but I didn’t know this story. And it turned out to be great.
The story is set in Maine. It’s about five kids. Gina Tumolois the leader. She says right out that she always wanted to be rich. Her hero is Bill Gates and she wants to be a millionaire before she is a teenager (she’s 11). She is unabashed about her love of money. And she is very bummed that she has none.
The summer starts and she is bored. Because she has no money. So she and her friend Robert , who hang out in the branches of the tree in the park behind their house start talking about what to do for the summer. Then their friend Quincy comes over. Quincy is my favorite character because she is from Australia and she speaks in Australian slang (which is very helpfully translated every time she speaks–you can learn a lot of great funny slang including some very finny words for “idiot” from this book). There’s also the Boggle twins, 8 year old boys who are a pain–and unstoppable liars. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 