Not old enough to work at the Clucket Bucket or Dairy Whip and with no plans for sports or camp, the 12-year-old hero of Gary Paulsen’s hilarious novel, Lawn Boy, simply wants to earn a little extra money to repair his bike. His grandmother’s odd birthday gift an old riding lawn mower sets the course for his surprising and profitable summer.
Arnold, one of his first clients, has a cash-flow problem of his own. The work-at-home stockbroker offers to invest the boy’s pay in the stock market, and when the preteen has more demands for mowing than he can possibly supply, Arnold helps set him up as the boss of 15 employees. The business operations are hard for the boy to follow, and he is shocked to learn that he not only owns stock in a coffin-making corporation, he’s also the sole sponsor of a heavyweight boxer. The threat of a hostile takeover forces the boy to let his parents in on his sizable new income nearly half a million dollars! With his quick-paced, conversational narration and such chapter headings as The Law of Increasing Product Demand Versus Flat Production Capacity, Paulsen presents capitalism and storytelling at its best in this delightful summer story.
