Lunch Money by Andrew Clements

★★★

I decided to pick up this book because Isabelle once named Andrew Clements as her favorite author.

In many ways, this book had to grow on me. When the main character Greg was first introduced, I thought he was completely unrelatable! A kid who's good at everything!? How is that interesting? It took a few chapters, but Greg's creativity and industriousness finally grew on me.

Just as things were getting interesting, we met Maura. And again! I found her just as annoying and frustrating as Greg did - though perhaps that's a testament to the author's writing ability! Gradually, I grew to accept her, though I fell short of actually liking her.

The story is good. Greg comes up with a way to make money at school - an idea that impressively requires quite a lot of work and preparation - but his plans are foiled by the school principal. Meanwhile, he surprisingly finds himself in a position of sort of befriending Maura and working with her on a new plan. Together, they want to find a way to convince the principal to allow them to run their business in school.

I like that there's a lot of development - character development, product development, relationship development. There are also a lot of opportunities to learn something - how to go about figuring out how to get something done, how some things are worth more than money, how important it is to adapt in certain situations. There's a bit of humor, and the events unfold at a good pace.

I can see why this book might appeal to upper elementary readers. As realistic fiction, there's a sense of, "Wow, I could do that, too!"

I was disappointed, then, at the very end, when the story suddenly became over-the-top and not at all realistic.

Final note: There are a lot of math references in this book, making it possibly a good selection for young readers who generally like math more than reading.