The Get Rich Quick Club

September 6, 2004
Gutman's (Honus & Me
; the Baseball Card Adventures) light, sprightly-paced story introduces a quintet of kids who start a club with the intention of making lots of money—fast. Eleven-year-old narrator Gina ("CEO") believes that money makes the world go around ("My goal is to make my first million by the time I'm a teenager"). She masterminds the club's plan along with Rob, who Gina explains "sees the world differently from other people" and is "probably a genius," Quincy, an Australian girl whose colloquialisms are translated (rather annoyingly) with footnotes at the bottom of the pages; and a pair of eight-year-old twins with a penchant for stretching the truth—very far. After the kids decide against several suggested money-making schemes—marketing microwavable ketchup-filled pillows; writing a rap song ("Rappers make millions of dollars," says one twin)—Rob proposes photographing a phony UFO and selling the picture to the media. The tale grows taller as the twins embellish their UFO story for TV crews and the "sighting" makes national headlines, bringing masses of "UFO nuts" to town. Readers will hardly be surprised when the hoax is revealed, yet Gutman adds an unexpected final twist to this kid-pleasingly over-the-top tale. Ages 8-12.

December 13, 2004
With an even-keeled delivery and good sense of humor, Goethals becomes 11-year-old Gina Tumolo, a girl who loves money—she dreams of it, longs for it—and is not ashamed to admit it. With the goal of becoming a millionaire by the time she's a teenager, ambitious Gina moves swiftly into action, forming the Get Rich Quick Club. The five kid members (including a perky girl from Australia armed with an arsenal of colorful idioms), each with his or her own quirky "talent," make a pact to pile up the cash by summer's end.Hatching an account of a UFO sighting, replete with photos, is the first attention-getting, and potentially lucrative, step. Goethals does a commendable job with the character voices (including Australian Quincy) and maintains the lightheartedness that suffuses the comic, outlandish plot points. Listeners will have just as much fun hearing how the scheme unravels as they did during the build-up. Ages 8-12.

August 1, 2004
Gr 3-6-Gina, 11, dreams of making her first million this summer and becoming the next Bill Gates, and she recruits two of her classmates, as well as the annoying neighborhood twins, to help her. They call themselves the Get Rich Quick Club. With Gina as the CEO, they devise their company charter and bylaws and decide to fake a UFO sighting and sell their bogus photos to the tabloids for profit. The antics that follow are sure to tickle readers' funny bones. When it seems that the kids will succeed with their plan, the rug is pulled out from under them and their dreams are quickly dashed. However, a fun twist at the end pokes fun at tabloid papers and alleged alien encounters. Gutman's fans will not be disappointed by this fast-paced, comedic tale, and it's ideal for reluctant readers.-Linda Zeilstra Sawyer, Skokie Public Library, IL

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2004
Gr. 3-5. "Other kids want to be in the Olympics, or they want to become rock stars or presidents. Good for them. I want to be a millionaire." This confession comes from Gina, the wry 11-year-old narrator of Gutman's latest. With help from fellow stockholders, Gina, CEO of the Get Rich Quick Club, cooks up a cockamamy scheme to sell a story about visiting aliens to a tabloid. Gina's deadpan comment when she realizes their staged photo has touched off a nationwide frenzy ("Well, I guess I overestimated the intelligence of the human race") encapsulates the tart, funny thrust of this middle-grade satire, which combines elements of Andrew Clements' " Frindle (1996) "with the classic UFO scam, " War of the Worlds. "Some adults may find Gina's Bill Gates worship and the absence of significant consequences for the kids' dishonesty difficult to stomach. No matter; the intended audience will chortle over Gutman's characteristically broad humor, and will appreciate that the lessons about our money-grubbing, media-saturated culture are left implicit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2005
Determined to make a million dollars, fifth-grader Gina forms the "Get Rich Quick Club" with her friends. The group decides to photograph a UFO and then sell the pictures to a supermarket tabloid. What could be easier? The fast-moving, humorous novel is populated with kid-pleasing characters, including an Australian girl who speaks in Down-Under slang (translated in footnotes).

(Copyright 2005 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)