Diary of a wimpy kid: Book 4

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney

Once again, I was laughing out loud at Greg and his friends as they spend most of their summer trying to avoid having anything to do with work, grownups and their families. I can't help myself - I love this character, I think he has something we all can relate with (I mostly relate with getting shoved off the high diving board by my brother).

Have fun reading this one. I just want to add that Jeff Kinney has made a terrific living from drawing simple cartoons and that his books and my previous post about Adventures in Cartooning are a match made in cartoon heaven.

From the back cover: It's summer vacation - the weather's great, and all the kids are having fun outside. So where's Greg Heffley? Inside his house, playing video games with the shades drawn. Greg, a self-confessed "indoor person" is living out his ultimate summer fantasy: no responsibilities and no rules. But Greg's mom has a different vision for an ideal summer... one packed with outdoor activities and "family togetherness." Whose vision will win out? Or will a new additon to the Heffley family change everything?

Read On

Project sweet life

Project Sweet Life by Brent Hartinger

Summer holidays are here. Yipee!! Days and days of sleeping in, hanging with friends, hours of doing not much of anything. Right. That's what the three main characters of Project sweet life thought too. That is until their fathers come up with the idea that all three should have summer jobs!! Yes you heard right - work, jobs, schedules, minimum wage, uuuuugggghhhh.

Dave, Curtis and Victor decide there is a way around the dreaded summer job - and they call it Project Sweet Life - really all they have to do is make roughly $7500.00 and they're off the hook. But project sweet life does require lying to everyone around them about their susposed summer jobs and then how to make the money. Their first project sees the trio selling all the cool stuff they've collected over the years in a massive garage sale just to see the cash flying out of thier hands as fast as it came into them. On to the next idea...

I thought this was an original, fun read. And if your avoiding getting a summer job, well, this book might give you a couple of good ideas.

From the back cover:
"Here's the nasty little secret about summer jobs, something the adults don't tell you: Once you take that first summer job, once you start working, you're then expected to keep working. For the rest of your life! Once you start, you can't stop, ever- not until you retire or you die.
Sure, I knew I'd have to take a job next summer. But now, I had two uninterrupted months of absolute freedom ahead of me - two summer months of living life completely on my own terms. I knew they were probably my last two months of freedom for the next fifty years."

For the slackers.
Read on.

Lawn boy by Gary Paulsen

Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen

This is a perfect, short book for fans of Gary Paulsen. Maxing out at 88 pages, this is a story all about getting rich quick and who wouldn't like that. Recommended for 6th graders who dream of making money.

From the back cover:

One day I was twelve years old and broke. I set out to mow some lawns with Grandpa's old riding mower. One client was Arnold the stockbroker, who offered to teach me about: The beauty of capitalism, Supply and demand. Diversifying labor. Distributing the wealth. "It's groovy man," Arnold said.

The grass grew, and so did business. Arnold invested my money in many things. One of them was a prize-fighter. All of a sudden I was the sponsor of my very own fighter, Joey Pow. That's when my summer got really interesting.