Flat Broke: The Theory, Practice and Destructive Properties of Greed

by Gary Paulsen

Overview

Kevin struggled to overcome his knack for lying in Liar, Liar, and now he's back for another round of mayhem and misunderstandings in this financial comedy of errors. In Kevin, Gary Paulsen has created an appealing teen boy character who is just as human and fallible as his readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385740029
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	07/12/2011
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	810L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

GARY PAULSEN is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, His most recent books are Liar Liar, Masters of Disaster, Lawn Boy Returns, Woods Runner, Notes from the Dog, Mudshark, Lawn Boy, Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day, The Time Hackers, and The Amazing Life of Birds (The Twenty Day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech).

Editorial Reviews

Booklist, June 1, 2011:
"If the unnamed narrator of Paulsen’s Lawn Boy (2007) is the plucky entrepreneur who skyrockets to riches, Kevin is the wannabe mogul who sees an angle a mile away but trips over his own sky’s-the-limit aspirations. A glib, quick read to launch a thousand MBAs."

From the Publisher

Money makes the world go round for fourteen-year-old Kevin Spencer. That is, it did until his parents put him on the "If-you-Lie-Bad-Things-Will-Happen" program because he duped everyone in his life. Now, Kevin has no income at all. Now, there is no way he will be able to convince Tina Zabinski to go the dance with him because girls are only attracted to rich, successful guys. So Kevin hatches a plan, borrows a little cash from his sister and starts a poker business in his aunt's shop. It doesn't get any easier than this, right? The problem with people who love money is that they usually get greedy. So, Kevin decides to expand the business to include a beauty salon out of his sister's bathroom, cleaning garages and catering snacks to college kids with the munchies. In order to be successful, Kevin "borrows" a golf cart and begins dumping the trash from the garages in the dumpsters outside businesses without asking. No one said he couldn't, so what could go wrong? Will he catch Tina's eye and find the time to ask her to the dance in the middle of all the chaos? Will his businesses be a huge success, or an epic failure? It's not necessary to read the companion book entitled Liar, Liar, but readers will most likely want to know more about the back story of why Kevin is in trouble in Flat Broke. The chapters are short, which will appeal to reluctant readers, and the book is written in a conversational way that will appeal to all readers. Reviewer: Heather Welsh

Children's Literature - Heather Welsh

A 14-year-old greedily launches himself headlong into the entrepreneurial world, with amusing consequences.

In the sequel to Liar, Liar (2011), Kevin's parents have taken away his allowance to punish him for his creative lying. Never impeded by misfortune (or a guilty conscience or the advice of everyone wiser than he), he decides it's a great time to make money. First he provides the perfect venue for poker games, even though some of his hapless player-victims begin to lose more money than they have. With the gambling business running admirably, he starts cleaning neighbors' garages, not worrying that depositing the trash in store Dumpsters is illegal. Then he begins "borrowing" a golf cart to sell cookies and coffee to college students. But he steps on too many people on the way up, inevitably leading to his downfall. Kevin's good-natured—if oversimplified—view of the world is pretty funny, and while readers will anticipate problems long before he does, it just adds to the fun. Chapter titles taken from a fictitious book on making money—"The Successful Person Has Vision That Others Lack," for example—contrast nicely with the disastrous outcome of Kevin's grandiose plans. That his droll first-person account only lightly sketches other characters hardly matters.

A jocular, fast-paced voyage into the sometimes simple but never quiet mind of an ambitious eighth grader. (Fiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews