Owen Foote, Money Man

          Chapter Book # 4
            

          AUTHOR:  Stephanie Green

          TITLE: Owen Foote, Money Man

          ILLUSTRATOR:  Martha Weston

          GENRE: Juvenile Fiction

          SUB GENRE: Realistic

          THEME: 

          Money, family life, value of hard work 
          and the value of friendship

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CHARACTERS:

Owen, his Mom, his sister Lydia, Joseph, 
          his best friend, Mr. White, the neighbor.

DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2004 by Scholastic Inc.

Owen Foote is an eight year old boy who received the catalog “Junk you never knew about” in the mail.  In this catalog he sees the most amazing items that he just cannot live without.  Items like plastic vomit, a whoopee cushion and dog poop!!  Owen conducts a demonstration on the workings of the toilet, which does not get rave reviews and earns him only one quarter.  He then offers to rake up a pile of leaves for one cent a leaf, with no takers on that scheme. His parents believe that in order to get an allowance, you need to do chores. After a few more unimpressive ventures, Owen is asked by his neighbor Mr. White to be a consultant on his pond building project. Just the word consultant excites Owen to no end. They work really hard on the pond and Owen enjoys himself in the process.  Mr. White gives Owen a crisp new $20 bill unexpectedly and he is thrilled.  He has learned the value of hard work and has a lot of pride in the wonderful job that they both did.  Owen goes on to buy his best friend Joseph a turtle with his money.  I enjoyed this book and think young readers will too.  Not only is it funny, the reader will also learn some good lessons on the value of money and the value of friendship.  

As a parent or teacher, you could ask the children to come up with their own ideas about how to raise money if they have something they would like to buy. They can describe what the job will entail and how much they will charge. You could also get them to make posters advertising the job.  I think students/children can learn that hard work does provide you with satisfaction and sometimes a monetary reward.  Good lessons to learn.