The Get Rich Quick Club

by Dan Gutman Narrated by Angela Goethals

Overview

We, the members of the Get Rich Quick Club, in order to form a more perfect summer, vow we will figure out a way to make a million dollars by September. We agree that neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night will prevent us from achieving our stated goal, until death do us part.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

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. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

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 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173428653
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/18/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

Read an Excerpt

The Get Rich Quick Club AER

Chapter One

Nothing to Be Ashamed Of

I, Gina Tumolo, love money. So I guess it makes sense for me to dream about it.

I, Gina Tumolo, want to be a millionaire.

There, I said it. I know it's not cool to say it, but it's the truth, so I might as well admit it. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved money. In fact, the first memory I have is of money. I was sitting on the couch watching TV one day, and I found a dollar bill stuck inside the cushions. I must have been four years old.

I remember looking at those mysterious markings on the bill. The pyramid with that creepy-looking eye floating through it. What did it mean, I wondered? It all seemed very mystical and magical and wonderful.

I realize that money is just pieces of paper and disks of metal. But from a very young age, I was aware that those papers and disks were powerful. They could be exchanged for other things. You could turn them into just about anything.

This was amazing to me. You could actually walk into a store, hand somebody some green pieces of paper, and then take something from the store to bring home with you. To keep!

Incredible! And the more of that green paper you had, I quickly learned, the more stuff you could bring home.

Wow! What a fantastic idea! I wanted to get as much of that green paper as possible.

I never had many toys when I was little. My parents didn't have much money back then. Whenever I asked for something, they would give me the old line "It costs too much," or "Money doesn't grow on trees." Maybe that's why all I ever wanted was to accumulate as much money as I could.

Welearned in school that King Tut became the ruler of all Egypt when he was about my age, eleven. He owned all the treasures of the kingdom. Bill Gates, I know, started Microsoft when he was barely twenty, and it wasn't long before he became the richest person in the world.

Why not me? I asked myself. Why can't I, Gina Tumolo, accumulate a vast fortune at a very young age? What's stopping me?

Nothing. 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. My goal is to make my first million before I'm a teenager.This is the story of the most amazing summer I ever had. It was the summer I started the Get Rich Quick Club.

The Get Rich Quick Club AER. Copyright © by Dan Gutman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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