Detail
Title: Millionaires for the Month ISBN: 9780593305461Published September 1st 2020 by Random House Books for Young Readers · Paperback 304 pages
Genre: Childrens, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Humor, Fiction, Young Adult, Contemporary, Family, Audiobook, Academic, School
Must be read
User Reviews
Ms. Yingling
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Benji and Felix are classmates, but very different people. Felix is all about following the rules, and Benji just wants to have fun. When they are on a field trip to New York City, the boys find a wallet in Central Park. When it turns out it belongs to millionaire Laura Friendly, Benji is okay with "borrowing" $20 so the boys can eat lunch. They do turn the wallet in, and Ms. Friendly is glad they did. She's also a bit put off by the fact that Benji doesn't feel too bad about borrowing the money, and she issues the boys a challenge: the boys need to spend over $5 million in a month. If they do, she will give them each ten million dollars that they can keep. Of course, there are lots of rules about what they can and can't buy, but the biggest rule is that they are not allowed to tell their parents! Mr. Trulz is in charge of their debit cards, and has to approve purchases. It's a lot of money to spend, especially since they can't give any to charity of buy gifts. Some purchases are easy enough to get away with, like delivering doughnuts to school, but many, like taking a hotel room, renting cars, and employing a driver, prove to be more difficult. The boys find a dog, whom they name Freebie, and have their driver, a college student named Reggie, help to take care of him. Their school work suffers as they try to find ways to spend the money that won't get them in trouble with their parents. This is hard, especially when Felix wants to do things like help his sister Georgie pay for her wedding to Michelle. Felix's single mother, as well as his sister, are struggling with day-to-day expenses, so they don't approve of all of the expensive meals and tennis shoes that the boys are buying. While Benji's family is a little better off, they also feel there are more intelligent ways to spend the money, and eventually go to court to get the boys to stop spending money! This puts a crimp in their plan, and they try to find a way around it. When a tragedy occurs that necessitates spending money, the boys skirt the rules a little. Will Ms. Friendly let them get away with it? Or is she determined to teach them a lesson?
Strengths: This is pure tween wish fulfillment! Spend $5 million dollars in a month! Buy doughnuts for everyone, live it up with meals out, fund princess parades for teachers' kids! Great stuff. There is also a subplot involving the boys trying out for the school basketball team that is well done, and is a great selling point for a lot of readers. The boys are different enough that it is fun to watch them work together; they hadn't been friends, but don't mind each other, and work well together in their enviable predicament. The family angst is realistic; I really enjoyed the wedding scheme, and Felix's stress when his mother quits her job brings an air of seriousness to this. There are pictures of the banking app and the amount of purchases made that keeps the story moving along. This is a great doughnut of fun with an icing of more serious issues and a few sprinkles of moral lessons for good measure. Tasty!
Weaknesses: While I really like McAnulty's fresh plots and generally upbeat tone, I wish her books were just a tiny bit shorter. 200 pages remains the Gold Standard for middle grade literature, and it's sometimes hard to convince my students to check out longer tomes.
What I really think: It was a little hard for me to believe that Ms. Friendly would want to keep parents in the dark, and that the boys were able to do this, but that's just my adult perspective talking. Ms. Friendly eventually doubts her methods, and what tween hasn't tried to hide things from a parent? Definitely purchasing, and the cover and title will make this a popular pick.
Darla
Could you spend $5 million in a month? Sounds like fun, but what if you are prohibited from donating to charity, investing in assets, and giving gifts? That makes it a whole lot more challenging. Can two 12-year-old boys win the challenge and earn $10 million each? They sure do find some creative ways to spend the money. That's for sure. Will the experience bond make Benji and Felix best friends, or will the money eventually drive them apart? As a parent what was hardest for me was to watch these boys look like a couple of spoiled rich brats and not be able to go to their own parents for advice. Not a good prescription for family togetherness. On the other hand, some of the best books in middle grade fiction show what kids can do when they are not micromanaged. So, I do think kids will be entertained when reading this book. There are some intriguing financial equations included at the end.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.
Cassie Thomas
This is such a fun story for kids. I even enjoyed the math at the end. Benji and Felix were the most unlikely friends, but as fate would decide - they became business partners, in the oddest way. Sharing and spending 5 million dollars in a month. There were a lot, and I mean A LOT, of rules and stipulations to this 5 million. They learned a lot about who they each were, a lot of philosophical knowledge about the mind of others, and that money definitely doesn’t mean as much as we like to think it does.
In the end, do your best with what you have, work hard for what you want, and be a good friend.
Amy
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a DRC of this title for review. All opinions are my own.
This was a lovely book. I only briefly SKIMMED the premise before beginning it, but knew that it was something I should keep on my radar since McAnulty is a prominent author in my building and one of her earlier works is currently a nominee for our state award list. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this one, and I can't wait to recommend it to my readers.
Felix and Benji aren't friends. So when they're paired up for a field trip, neither of them is very excited. Felix wishes Benji would just follow the rules, and Benji wishes Felix would have some fun already. When they get to the park for lunch, they find an abandoned wallet. The driver's license belongs to Ms. Friendly, the billionaire. Benji decides to "borrow" $20, buy lunch, and then return the wallet with a note stating who had found it. Soon enough, Ms. Friendly shows up at their school to give them their reward for returning the wallet. The boys are incredibly excited, at least until she offers them a deal: take the scholarship money NOW, or take the amount of penny doubled every day for a month. That amount? Over five million dollars. The catch? They have to spend it all that month, on only themselves, on disposable items (no real estate, no investments) and they have to keep it a secret. If they can do it, they'll get $10 million at the end, to keep. No strings attached.
Being 7th graders, they take the deal. Because how hard can it be to spend five million dollars? Harder than it seems.
So, why only 4 stars? There were a few plot holes/undeveloped items that nagged me enough that I withheld the 5th star. Nothing awful, but enough.
Overall, this is a strong purchase for almost all library collections serving middle grade readers. It is fast paced, fun/funny, and it showcases just how money can change a person.
Theresa Grissom
A huge thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book.
I simply adored this book! The whole concept of the story is brilliant and the story itself is so much fun. There is so much to say about this book but I don't want to give anything away. I KNOW the students at my school will love this book. It's fun, fast paced and is a great conversation starter. Already put this on my to-be-ordered list for my school library.
Myrtle
One of the best books ever. I couldn't put it down because it was so exciting and suspenseful. Lots of plot twists! Totally reccomend
Vish
This book was stupendously, idiotically, phenomenal. Sooooooo... there were 2 kids named Benji and Felix. They were polar opposites, but they were assigned together as field trip partners, and they found a wallet belonging to a billionaire named Laura Friendly. Benji had to beg Felix to get a hot dog for $20 from Laura Friendly. Then they gave it to a police officer who mailed it back to Ms. Friendly. But Ms. Friendly finds out and offers 2 things $20,000 for collage or a penny doubled each day for 30 days (5,368,709.12). But they have to spend it in the same amount of time and the prize for finishing the challenge was 10,000,000. But they can’t buy houses or gifts, and they can’t tell ANYONE.
Shaye Miller
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is the story of an unlikely friendship forged by a twenty-dollar bill. Benji is fairly wealthy, he’s the tallest kid in his class, and quite outspoke. Felix, on the other hand, is small, quiet, and his single-mom obviously struggles, financially. Happenstance places both boys in the right place at the right time to be thrown into a game of spending millions in free cash. The catch is, they have to spend over $5,000,000.00 in 30 days or they lose it all. Oh, and did I mention there are a number of rules they must follow. For example, no real estate, no jewelry, no art, and whatever they buy must be used by the boys (so no gifts for others). Easy peasy, right? WRONG! Because they cannot tell a soul about the challenge. Just imagine being the parents of THESE boys as they burn through millions in mere WEEKS!
While I admit I wasn’t enamored by the cover art, the story was captivating right up to the end. I believe the book will make an excellent middle grade read aloud – kids will be talking in class, in hallways, at lunch, and after school as they come up with ways THEY would have made the challenge work, despite the strict rules. But there’s more to this story than money and math. The family relationships and management of an unusual friendship are both insightful and touching. McAnulty writes so well for this audience! And sure to check out the math information and charts available in the back matter.
For more children's literature, middle grade literature, and YA literature reviews, feel free to visit my personal blog at The Miller Memo!
V (Taylor’s Version)
I enjoyed this a great deal more than Lightning Girl, which I read in elementary school as part of the reading list (and also at the behest of my librarian, because who are we to distrust elementary school librarians’ judgment?) Revolving around Benji and Felix, our middle school protagonists who find $20 in a wallet belonging to the tech giant, Laura Friendly (weird last name but let’s just roll with it), to buy some snacks that the teacher did not permit on their school field trip (when have we not done that before? Thank you to Stacy McAnulty for actually making the middle-grade protagonists act their age this time, unlike Lucy, who was a math genius whining every other page or thinking she was better than everyone else and ended up not knowing how to solve the easiest math problem known to man.) When their lives collide with Laura Friendly, she gives them a challenge to spend a set amount of money in thirty days, with a list of ground rules. The reward for spending said amount of money? Even more money. Wow. Anyway, spoiler alert; (I’m not categorizing this as ‘Spoilers’ because it’s fairly minor and it won’t disrupt anyone else) they get a date with their principal. Final verdict; a pretty good time-killer for middle-grade readers who love math and the power of consumerism!
Mary-Jane
I liked the idea of two boys being granted a dream amount of money. Kind of like Richie Rich. It will be great for kids to see the lesson of how money doesn’t always bring happiness and it can change people. I liked how the chapters ended with the boys’ bank balance. I believe my students will love reading it.
Liz Friend
The story: Felix and Benji return a wallet after "borrowing" $20 from it. They don't feel bad, because the wallet belongs to billionaire Laura Friendly. In response to their excuse that she has all the money in the world, she offers them a challenge: team up to spend $5 million in one month, and if they can do it, they'll win even more. But...they have to keep it secret, and they can't buy big-ticket items like houses, cars, or artwork. Can they do it? Hand over that debit card, because the boys are willing to find out!
Watch my book trailer: https://youtu.be/C0QAl5kxtDY
June Cleaver's ratings: Language G; Violence G; Sexual content G; Nudity G; Substance abuse G; Magic & the occult G; GLBT content PG; adult themes (absent parent, deceit) PG; overall rating PG. Good for grades 4-7.
Liz's comments: A fun story about two boys who don't seem to have much in common, but who can team up for a common cause. And although it turns out to be a lot harder to spend $5 million than they expected--and to keep it secret from their parents--they learn some important life lessons, not least about money.
Christina
The concept of this book is a bit far-fetched: two classmates find a billionaire's wallet and take $20 before returning it only to be "rewarded" with a challenge to spend over $5 million dollars in a month. There are several rules, of course, including that money cannot be gifted or used to purchase gifts, invested, or used to buy property. Additionally, all purchases will have to be returned at the end of the month.
It's equal parts entertaining and informative and I can see how it could spark some great conversations. In fact, if I were still teaching I would strongly consider this as a classroom read-aloud that would tie into math class. If readers can suspend their belief regarding the situation, they'll enjoy watching the characters bond over their newfound wealth while discovering that money doesn't solve all of the world's problems, but can be very helpful in solving others.
Katy Kelly
A young Brewster's Millions, satisfying and with a lot to think about.
Brewster's Millions (Richard Pryor and John Candy) was one of the films of my childhood. About a pretty penniless ball player given $30 million to spend by a distant billionaire relative in his will, he must spend it in a month to receive his true inheritance of $300 million.
Now this wish-fulfilment story is transported to a school, and to two boys who find a billionaire's wallet. As reward/punishment for stealing $20 out of it, she (yes, now a female) sets them a similar challenge. Without explaining to anybody why, and without giving any away, they must spend $5million in a month to receive a bigger sum that is theirs to keep.
But Felix and Benji can't explain to anyone why they are 'wasting' all this money, buying useless things but not things that could be helpful to family and friends. They might just learn what money, riches and even friendship mean over the course of the month.
The context change really worked for this plot: what child hasn't dreamed of this type of scenario, being able to throw money at every single thing they've dreamed of? But consequences exist and the two boys, different in temperament, family situation and even morality, will both find themselves thinking hard about what matters and what they can do together.
Great audiobook, I really enjoyed the narrator voicing the boys, and it's one I'll share with my 9-year-old. It's a straightforward story to follow and a good choice for a listen rather than on paper.
The different personalities of the boys were a good contrast, with a few moral dilemmas flung their way, some maths I enjoyed (regarding the money), the effects of over-indulgence, and some clever manoeuvres to attempt to spend all the money in time.
Great title for the 9-13 market. Lots to think about and to entertain, and even discuss.
With thanks to Nudge Books for providing a sample Audible copy.
Jenny (ofproseandspells)
Such a fun read! Millionaires for the Month is not only entertaining, but also teaches us how money cannot buy the things that matters the most.
The story is about an unexpected friendship that started when two boys found a wallet owned by a tech billionaire. Felix was firmed to return the wallet, but Benji “borrowed” twenty dollars first to buy some hotdogs. A few days later, Laura Friendly contacted and challenged them to spend 5 million dollars for thirty days. If they won, they would get ten million each. Spending that much money seemed easy, but Felix and Benji were bound to lots of rules. At first, they enjoyed spending as much as they want. However, as time went and they encountered problems, they realized it wasn’t fun and easy as they thought the challenge would be. Plotwise, the premise was really intriguing. I think every one dreamed to have that amount of money in one point of their lives. While the overall mood and atmosphere seemed upbeat and juvenile, it also discussed significant and relevant values that younger readers can easily relate to and learn from. Mostly the plot focused on how the value of money affected Felix and Benji’s own worries, their friendship, their relationship with their families, and how other people saw them. I think the book succeeded in conveying the moral lessons it wanted to convey to its readers.
I also enjoyed the dynamics of the two main characters. Felix and Benji were completely opposites in appearance, attitude, and their socio-economic status. While Felix was a follower, Benji always bended the rules. Benji did not have to concern himself to money matters, while Felix’s family struggled. Although Felix had short stature, he was good at playing basketball while Benji’s tall height did not help him to be good at basketball at all. Despite their differences, they knew that they can count on each other. Even when there were few bumps on their friendship, they still managed to solve their issues and become closer than before.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. This fast-paced, delightful book will surely amuse anyone regardless of age. I highly recommend this book.
5/5 stars!
Mrs. Mazzola
Stacy McAnulty once again does a great job of creating complex and nuanced characters that are relatable and engaging. In this story, two boys, thrown together by circumstance and not by choice, happen to find a wallet while on a class trip. They discover that the wallet belongs to the female equivalent of Bill Gates, a billionaire tech mogul, and after some persuasion from one of the boys, they decide to keep $20 to buy food and then return the wallet. This turns into a very serious problem when the owner of the wallet proposes a kind of bet with the boys in lieu of revealing their original theft. The bet is that the boys have to secretly spend 5 million dollars, but with a bunch of stipulations and exceptions. If they succeed, they will get a much bigger payout, but is it even possible? Both boys have their own reasons for wanting to prove themselves and of course that amount of money would be life changing. The story is told in alternating narration with both boys becoming truly fleshed out and interesting characters. Even the side stories are compelling. And, despite the length, the story moves quite quickly. Great messages about the value of money, spending and saving, how friendships develop from shared experiences, and evaluating what is truly important to you. This is perfect for a class read aloud and writing prompt and will absolutely be a hit in my library.
**Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy. All opinions are my own.**