Secrets of a Schoolyard Millionaire – a middle grade novel by Nat Amoore.
Bouncing up and down on a trampoline can be a lot of fun. It can also be an awesome way of looking over your neighbour’s fence.
Boing-boing: Looking.
Not looking.
Boing-boing: Looking.
Not looking.
Boing-boing: Looking again.
Not looking.
Boing-boing: Looking.
Alright enough, I’m getting dizzy. However, when your neighbour is a bad dude like Tess’s neighbour, you should not be looking at all.
Who wants to be a millionaire?
When 10-year-old Tess – an endearing, money obsessed, extremely bright kid from an everyday family just like yours and mine – witnesses her neighbour run from the police and drop a million dollars, she takes the money, tells her best friend and goes on a spending spree to change the world. Woo-hoooo! What could possibly go wrong with that?
Is the answer …
A: Nothing. They get away scot-free and live super-happily ever after?
B: They become the most popular kids in the world?
Or
C: The crazy-psycho neighbour escapes from the police and comes looking for Tess?
Geez, I hope it’s not C.
What would Tess do?
Would she involve her best friend, her brother, a dumb dog named Butthead, her sisters, a homeless lady who lives in the park and a money grabbing ferret to help her? Maybe.
Or maybe, she’d just print some pretend money and give that to the crazy-psycho neighbour, he’d never know, would he?
Heck I don’t know.
What I do know is this is one rollicking ride. A hugely fun read with a well-driven plot, great characters and a big bag of cash!
Kids of all ages will associate with the quandary of finding a million dollars and wondering what to do next.
You had me at big bag of cash!
The humour comes largely from the main character, Tess, who reminds me of, and I’m showing my age here, Alex P Keaton meets Hermione Granger. She’s a lead character beyond her years with a great sense of humour that will keep you reading through to the final pages wondering what happens next.
Details:
Author: Nat Amoore
Publisher: Penguin Random House, Australia, 2019
To find out more about this children’s author, speaker, work-shopper and all-round bucket-of-fun, Nat Amoore, you can Google her or click on her website here: https://www.natamoore.com/