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Lunch Money
Lunch Money
Lunch Money
Ebook189 pages2 hours

Lunch Money

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

Meet Greg Kenton, billionaire in the making.

Greg Kenton has two obsessions -- making money and his long-standing competition with his annoying neighbor, Maura Shaw. So when Greg discovers that Maura is cutting into his booming Chunky Comics business with her own original illustrated minibooks, he's ready to declare war.
     The problem is, Greg has to admit that Maura's books are good, and soon the longtime enemies become unlikely business partners. But their budding partnership is threatened when the principal bans the sale of their comics in school. Suddenly, the two former rivals find themselves united against an adversary tougher than they ever were to each other. Will their enterprise -- and their friendship -- prevail?
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 17, 2012
ISBN9781442462199
Lunch Money
Author

Andrew Clements

Andrew Clements (1949–2019) was the author of the enormously popular Frindle. More than 10 million copies of his books have been sold, and he was nominated for a multitude of state awards, including a Christopher Award and an Edgar Award. His popular works include About Average, Troublemaker, Extra Credit, Lost and Found, No Talking, Room One, Lunch Money, and more. He was also the author of the Benjamin Pratt & the Keepers of the School series. Find out more at AndrewClements.com.

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Reviews for Lunch Money

Rating: 3.956834523261391 out of 5 stars
4/5

417 ratings93 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Greg Kenton is a boy in middle school who enjoys math and wants to make lots of money. He knew every kid brought money to school to buy lunch and other school supplies in the school shop. Greg figured if he made his own comic books he could sell them to the students for 25 cents and he could make lots of money. Everything in his plan goes great until Maura, a girl in his class decides she could also make comic books and sell them. Greg then becomes upset because he thinks she is stealing his idea. Eventually after their fighting in school, the principal forbids selling books or any other toy in her school. Greg and Mauria put aside their differences and realize they both have something in common and they begin working together to make great comic books. At the end of the book they convince the school committee to approve selling items in school because it teaches students creatvity and math concepts. Also 50 % the money made from their profits would go to the school.This is a great book to use for students in 3rd-7th grade. Lunch money teaches math concepts that are used everyday, such as interest rate, marketing, sales, percents, and competition between businesses. It also gives students ideas how they can be creative and how selling products can make money.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Math teachers often face the question: "When will I ever use this?". Well, Andrew Clements answers that question many times in this novel for children. The math concepts and character development in this book will inspire many classroom conversations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. Of course Greg's whole story is very entertaining, but I think the book is deeper than just the story. This whole book is about friendship and compromise. Greg could have continued his dislike for Maura but he knew in order to do what he really wanted to do he needed her to make his comics better. I think that is such an important lesson to teach students. Compromise is what makes the world a better place, and a book like this that can really get that point across to young students is a great book in my opinion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Almost five stars - a slow starter. But wow, what a way to get kids to think about the value of hard work, saving money, and cooperation and charity.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is about a boy, Greg, who wants to be rich. He decides to start creating comic books and selling them at school. He soon has competition from his neighbor Maura. They both face problems selling the items at school and ultimately join forces and form a successful business. It would be great for students to read. It could not only be used in English, but also in Math as it discusses numbers. For example, a teacher could have students figure out some of the problems in the book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book has a nice story line and will give children ideas of how they might be able to earn extra money. It also gives a perfect perfect for teachers to use while collaborating subjects in math, art, and writing. I found the first twenty pages hard to stay focused on as the character started out boring. As the story progressed, it became more engaging.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book is about a boy that is very fascinated with money. He always saved, and found all ways to make money for himself. As he gets older he starts a business where he sells comic books for money at school. He gets in trouble for this and runs into problems with his arch enemy and the principal. At the end he resolves his issues and actually unites with his enemy to go up against his principal to sell his comics and other things in school. This book teaches teamwork, the power of math, and friendship.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was my least favorite book out of all the novels assigned, and it was still amazing! I loved the story of Greg and his competition with his classmate and neighbor Maura. The endlessly competing peers found out that they had more in common then they thought and became friends and buisness partners. Such a cute story to show kids that value is in money, but more value is in kindness and friendship.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Greg is a young brilliant student that sells comic books to make money. He uses math, economics, business sills to promote his trolls and comic book selling. When his arch enemy starts on the comic book bandwagon, but for the female audience, he begins to figure out a new plan. The two of them team up to sell together and they run into problems with their principle. They win in the end. Students can learn from this book what takes to be a cleaver minded. It is a great book to get students thinking about their future and how they too can earn money.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "Lunch Money" is a book about a 6th grade boy named Greg. He is extremely focused on gaining millions in everything he does. He has a friend named Maura who sells comic books at school with him and eventually the books become popular. But soon Greg realized that money isn't as important as friendship.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This novel proves that literature can be incorporated in the math curriculum. It shows that subjects are interdisciplinary. In this book, Greg strives to make money, and he's really good at it. With the help of some friendly competition, he learns the importance of donating money to a good cause and fighting for what you believe. I would definitely have a fourth or fifth grade class read this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a book about a boy named Greg who wants to be rich. So he starts to sell Chunky Comics. He then finds out Maura(his arch-arch-arch-arch-enemy) likes comics, and is good at making them, too. Does Greg Have to work with his enemy?GREAT book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Being a math lover myself I really enjoyed this book. I loved how Greg learned at a young age that everything has a value. I would use this book to help students understand how math is used in everyday life.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Greg is a middle schooler who is obsessed with money. He will do anything to make some money including doing his brothers chores and mowing the neighbors grass. One day while he was at school he realized that the kids there had alot of extra money just hanging around. When he realized this he knew he had to come up with a way he could get that money. At first he decided to sell toys at school, but the principal wasn't happy about this, so she told him he couldn't sell toys anymore. He figured since he couldn't sell toys he would sell something that his principal would be ok with, comic books. He had his own little business set up, until one day his nemesis Maura decided to do the same thing. He got so aggravated with her. The principal ended up telling them both that they couldn't sell them anymore. Maura and Greg didn't think this was fair since other things were sold on school campus. They ended up taking their problem to the school board office and they made it possible for anyone to sell something on school campus as long as it was approved by a committee.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a great fun and funny book that kids can learn ALOT from. Not just the math and money skills, but skills of economics, trading and starting a business. When reading this book, you can have centers set up for children to design their own products, make prices for those products and try to sell them. Competition would be great and it would mock the book and give real life, math and social studies skills to the children.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    A friendship is created in order to make money. I did not like this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is about two young kids who are not the best of friends, in fact they are enemies, coming together for the greater good. They both are good at comic books and want a blooming business and by working together they can achieve it. So, they tear down the wall that has divided them, become friends and develop a booming comic book business, even win over the principle in an effort to keep comic books in school. The story leaves you with the feeling that enemies do not necessarily have to be enemies, you might have more in common that you think. Also money does not always mean happiness!Extension: Use this book as a lesson on bullying and how to overcome it. It would also be neat to use to find out who shares common likes and who can come up with business ideas.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Andrew Clements did a fabulous job telling a story about a boy named Greg Kenton who is always thinking of new ways to make money. One day at schood, Greg has a brilliant idea to create and sell comic books to his classmates, however, he believes Maura Shaw, a girl in his class, is out to ruin him by stealing all his creative ideas. Even though the prinicpal prohibited students from selling stuff at school, the two find a way to get what they want by working together.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Greg is a money hungry little boy, who would stop at nothing to become rich. Even with stiff competition from his neighbor across the street, Maura, he learns how to share, teach, and care about more than money. He has a influential teacher, Mr. Z., who helps them become friends, work together, and turn a profit.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. It is very well written and the story is extraordinary. I think I have never read a children's book where money was the main topic. Although this sounds really boring it's a great story and definitely worth reading!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Greg loves money. He loves, making it, counting it, feeling it, saving it, and thinking of ways to one day spend it. Everyday is filled with possible ways to make money and he is determined to find the best ways to make as much as he can. When Greg comes up with his idea for "Chunky Comics" he thought he hit the jackpot... Until he realizes that someone was trying to steal his idea. Not just someone, Maura, the annoying girl from accross the street who had been stealing his money making ideas for years. This is a cute book that I can see really appealing to early middle school aged students. Several different math concepts are woven throughout the story in a way that makes thinking about math more interesting and meaningful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Greg Kenton was not like any usual kid his age. Although most kids his age talked about getting rich and all the extravagant things that they want in the future, Greg was actually the only one that was working towards it. Well, at least he thought he was the only one. Maura Shaw was similar to Greg in a lot of ways. Although Greg and Maura were once rivals, the unexpected brought them together and eventually became business partners. Greg was known as the greedy kid because all he could ever think about was money. However, with the help of his lifelong rival Maura, Greg gained new perspectives that he never saw before.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An excellent story that manages to connect math to friendship. A young boy is in love with making money and will do almost anything to do so. But when his enemy is copying his "idea" things get a bit crazy. A friendship is formed and money is made.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very well written book! This book would be a great way to incorporate literature in math class. The book really gets the reader involved in figuring out the profits that Greg will make on his businesses. I really enjoyed the plot of the story where two enemies, Greg and Maura, become successful business partners.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was very interesting because it presented math in an exciting way to children. I enjoyed how much the money aspect was used throughout the book because money is such a huge part of our world. Greg is a hard-working, smart, child with tons of initiative and his story is a great one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lunch Money is an fun book to introduce or go along with math concepts in the classroom. I liked how the books was about math but wasn't solely revolving around numbers and problems. The book had well developed characters as well as a solid story line. I thought it was nice that the book had depth to it and wasn't just a "math" book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Greg has a preference for money. He likes to count his money, calculate, and of course earn money. That's why he comes up with lots of good ideas to get money. He sells lemonade, toys, comics, etc. but there is that one girl from his neighborhood who constantly steals his idea and ruins his business until one day they suddenly have to work together.A very nice story that shows how it is sometimes better to team up with your rivals in order to get more out of it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    11 year old Greg Kenton has always been obsessed with making money. He is constantly coming up with new ways to make a profit. His greatest idea of creating and distributing mini comic books is almost destroyed until he enlists the help of his arch rival and neighbor Maura Shaw. Together they create a successful company and Greg finds out that donating money makes a person even richer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lunch money is about a boy named Greg who is obsessed with money. Greg wants to make money so he comes up with the idea of selling toys at school. However, the principal of his school wasn't to keen on the idea of Greg selling toys. Greg then has to come up with another idea to make money. Greg starts his own little business by thinking of the idea of selling comic books. His neighbor Maura, who he doesn't particularly like decides to come up with her own illustrations for the mini books. He can't believe this and is very annoyed. THe principal ends up telling the two children that they can't make their comic books either. Maura and Greg find this unfair and decide to put aside their differences and talk to the school board. The school board finally agrees that anyone can sell whatever they please if it is passed by the school committee. This book deals with the subject of math incorporated into reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Money, money, money. That is all Greg Kenton thinks about. He thinks about how to make it, earn it, and how to spend it. Greg thinks of his school as a piggy bank and he is just longing for a way to crack it open. He then comes up with an idea of making small, mini comic books to sell to the students at his school. Business was going well for him until he had some competition with other mini comics made by his classmate and neighbor, Maura Shaw. Going with the concept "if you can't beat em, join em" Greg and Maura team up to create one comic that is approved by the school principal to share with all of their peers. This book would be great for an early middle school class because it relates to important, real-life concepts such as math, money, saving, working hard, and friendship.

Book preview

Lunch Money - Andrew Clements

Contents

Chapter 1: Talent

Chapter 2: Quarters

Chapter 3: The Perfect Hammer

Chapter 4: Units

Chapter 5: The Girl Across The Street

Chapter 6: Sour Business

Chapter 7: Order And Chaos

Chapter 8: Two Down

Chapter 9: Apologies

Chapter 10: Something Fishy

Chapter 11: Notes

Chapter 12: A Look

Chapter 13: Lockout

Chapter 14: Seventy-Five Percent Of Nothing

Chapter 15: Lessons

Chapter 16: Art And Money

Chapter 17: Selling

Chapter 18: Complicated

Chapter 19: Planning

Chapter 20: Agendas

Chapter 21: The Question Of Money

Chapter 22: New Business

Chapter 23: The Best Interests Of The School

Chapter 24: Success

For my dad, Bill Clements

Chapter 1

TALENT

Greg Kenton had heaps of talent. He was good at baseball, and even better at soccer. He had a clear singing voice, and he also played the piano. He was a whiz at sketching and drawing, and he did well at school—reading, science, music, writing, art, math, gym, social studies—the whole deal. But as good as he was at all these things, Greg’s greatest talent had always been money.

Greg had never taken money lessons. He hadn’t had a money tutor or gone to money camp. His talent with money was natural. He had always understood money. He knew how to save it, how to keep track of it, how to grow it, and most of all, how to make it.

It takes some kids years and years to figure out that everything is worth something. Not Greg. Sitting in a grocery cart by the door of the supermarket, he had watched with sharp brown eyes as his mom dropped a small metal disk into a red machine. Then she’d turned the crank, and a handful of M&M’s had rattled out into her hand. Greg loved the sweet, crunchy taste, but it wasn’t the candy that had captured his imagination. It was that shiny silver coin.

While he was still a skinny preschooler with curly brown hair, Greg had learned to keep his eyes and ears open. One day at breakfast his biggest brother, Ross, griped, How come I have to make my bed? I’m just going to mess it up again tonight.

His other big brother, Edward, chimed in, "And cleaning up our rooms every single morning? That’s not fair. Besides, they’re our rooms."

His mom had answered, "Yes, but your rooms are in my house, and I like my house tidy. So if you want to keep getting your allowances every Friday, get back upstairs and fix the mess."

Ross and Edward had grumbled all the way back to their rooms. Their little brother followed them, and two minutes later Greg had started a housekeeping business: making a bed, ten cents; putting dirty clothes in the laundry, five cents; putting clean clothes away, two cents; and hanging up used towels, three cents each.

If both his big brothers were complete slobs, and they usually were, Greg earned a little more than two dollars a week—so it was certainly not a get-rich-quick scheme. But that wasn’t what Greg was trying to do. He was perfectly happy to get rich slowly, because being patient is a big part of having money talent. Greg understood that a year has fifty-two weeks. So between the ages of four and six Greg transformed rumpled sheets, used underwear, smelly socks, and soggy towels into beautiful, spendable cash—more than two hundred dollars. Then his mom shut down his business, insisting that Ross and Edward had to do their own chores.

When he was still in nursery school, Greg had taken charge of recycling the family’s trash. He emptied all the waste baskets at least once a week. At the bins out in the garage, he sorted the newspapers and magazines from the cardboard, the aluminum from the steel, and the plastic from the plastic. As a reward for this service, which took him only ten minutes a week, Greg was allowed to keep the deposit refunds on all the cans and bottles. This added up to about four dollars a month in the cool seasons and eight dollars a month during the long, thirsty summer.

As a seven and eight-year-old, Greg had found other ways to make money around the house and yard. He shined his dad’s and mom’s dress shoes for fifty cents a pair. He scrubbed black heel marks and old wax off the floor tiles in the kitchen for ten cents a square. He dug dandelions out of the lawn at the rate of four for a nickel. And he picked Japanese beetles off the shrubs for a penny a bug.

At first Greg enjoyed simply having the money he made. Cash was fun and interesting all by itself. He liked sorting and stacking the bills—singles, fives, tens, twenties, and even a few fifties he’d gotten from his grandparents for Christmas. He studied the faces of the famous presidents, and Alexander Hamilton, too—who he discovered was never president, only the first secretary of the treasury of the United States. He looked at the engraving on the bills with a magnifying glass, studying the tiny face of Lincoln sitting there on his big square chair inside the Lincoln Memorial on the back of every five-dollar bill.

Greg found the coins just as interesting. He loved making rolls of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, stacks and stacks of them. And the golden Sacagawea dollar coins? He didn’t put them into rolls. He had collected twenty-seven of them, which he kept hidden in a sock in the bottom drawer of his dresser. Every once in a while he’d spread them out on his bed and count them again.

Greg also became an amateur coin collector. It was exciting to come up with a Mercury dime now and then, and he’d found a couple dozen of those gray pennies that had been made out of steel instead of copper during the Second World War. He had found pennies that were worth ten dollars or more, and that can get a kid thinking.

As nice as it was to have the money itself, Greg quickly learned it was also fun to spend some now and then. He would spend it for something special, like his own professional-quality soccer ball, or one of those huge aluminum flashlights with six batteries, that could throw a beam of light all the way across the lake at his grampa’s cabin. He bought cool stuff that he really wanted, and mostly when it seemed too long a wait until his birthday or Christmas. He bought collectible baseball cards, and he had also bought a few Beanie Babies and then sold them for a nice profit. Sometimes he bought comic books, but only a few, and only ones that looked like they would become more valuable. Greg loved comics, but he got to read all he wanted for free because his dad collected them.

By the time he got to third grade, Greg had set himself a goal. He wanted to be rich. He thought it would be fantastic to be able to spend all the money he wanted, anytime he felt like it. If he wanted to get the world’s fastest computer plus a hundred of the best games, no problem. If he wanted a car, a speedboat, a house in the mountains, a home-theater system, or even a whole island out in the middle of the Pacific—plus his own seaplane and a private crew to fly him there—no problem. Greg was sure that someday he’d be able to get anything he wanted. All he’d need was money.

And he wasn’t that different from his friends. A lot of them also dreamed about getting rich, and some of them wanted to be famous, too. Greg didn’t care much about fame. What was the point? Besides, he figured that if he got rich enough, really superrich, then the famous part would happen automatically anyway. But there was one big difference between Greg and most of his friends. He wasn’t just dreaming about getting rich. He was working at it.

As Greg reached third grade and then fourth, his whole neighborhood had become the land of opportunity. He was thin, but wiry, and strong enough to tackle any job he put his mind to. Greg raked and bagged leaves in the fall and again in the spring. He washed cars all spring, summer, and fall, and on hot days he sold lemonade. He shoveled snow and salted icy sidewalks in the winter. Greg became a feeder of cats, a walker of dogs, and a collector of mail and newspapers for people on vacation. He swept garages and straightened up messy basements. If people ever decided to throw things away, Greg kept the good stuff for himself and hauled it home to his own little corner of the Kenton family garage. And when he had collected enough interesting junk, Greg would drag it all out to the end of the driveway, put up a sign, and hold a sale. Neighborhood money filled Greg’s pockets the way rain fills puddles.

For example, consider what Greg earned just from shoveling snow. He had eight customers within two blocks of his house, and every time it snowed, he shoveled their front walks for a flat rate: ten dollars. The winter of his third-grade year, it snowed six times, and the winter of his fourth-grade year it snowed five times. And eleven snowfalls times eight customers equals eighty-eight shovel sessions, times ten dollars for each one equals eight hundred and eighty dollars—which isn’t just a lot of money to a nine-year-old. Eight hundred and eighty dollars is a lot of money to anybody.

It hadn’t taken Greg long to become the family banker. If his mom and dad were running late for a movie on a Saturday night, Greg was happy to lend them twenty dollars—as long as they signed his little record book and promised to repay the money. And his parents got special treatment. They didn’t have to pay Greg’s usual lending fees. After all, they didn’t charge him for the food he ate, or for the safe, warm bed he slept in every night. So that seemed fair. But his two brothers had to pay the regular rates.

If his older brother needed an extra five dollars to get that new baseball glove in time to break it in before the Babe Ruth tryouts, Greg was happy to lend him the money—as long as Edward signed the book and promised to pay back the five dollars one week later, plus a fifty-cent fee—and Greg got the old mitt as part of the deal, because a used baseball glove might be worth something at his next driveway sale. And if Ross just had to have that hot new CD the instant it arrived at the music store, he knew his little brother would be happy to help—for a fee.

Both Ross and Edward made fun of Greg’s moneymaking schemes. They called him Scrooge and Mr. Cashman and Old Moneybags, and some other nicknames too. Still, whenever they needed money, they knew they would always be welcome at the First Family Bank of Greg.

One Thursday shortly after Greg had finished fourth grade, his dad pulled a reference book off a shelf next to the computer in the family room. Along with the information he’d been looking for, he also found twelve five-dollar bills tucked between the pages. Only one person in the family could have owned that money, so at bedtime that night, he told Greg that he’d found it.

Greg sat straight up in bed. You put it all back, right?

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