Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

Starred Review This short and hilarious tale pitches an ordinary preteen with an old riding lawn mower into a dizzying ascent up the financial ladder. His sights set no higher than a new inner tube for his bike, the young narrator is thrilled to make $60 in one day, mowing his neighbors' lawns. Just as demand for his services skyrockets, he meets Arnold, an honest, home-based stockbroker who becomes his business manager . . . and less than a month later, the lad has a dozen migrant laborers in his employ. The legality of these workers is left vague, but their young employer treats them fairly, and the thousands of dollars he earns goes into some wildly successful investments cluding sponsorship of a rising prizefighter whose help comes in handy when the burgeoning enterprise attracts a shakedown artist. Thanks to quick lessons in, to quote some of the chapter heads, "Capital Growth Coupled with the Principles of Product Expansion" and "Force of Arms and Its App-lication to Business," the young tycoon ends up smarter than when he started out, and worth half a million dollars. When it comes to telling funny stories about boys, no one surpasses Paulsen, and here he is in top form.

Horn Book (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

When the twelve-year-old narrator's grandmother gives him a lawnmower, the youngster decides he might as well earn a few bucks. He meets Arnold, an investor with a cash-flow problem, who promises to buy stocks for him as payment for a freshly trimmed yard. With all the energy of a bull market, this brief farce has summer escapism written all over it.

Kirkus Reviews

After his grandmother gives him an old riding lawnmower for his summer birthday, this comedy's 12-year-old narrator putt-putts into a series of increasingly complex and economically advantageous adventures. As each lawn job begets another, one client—persuasive day-trader Arnold Howell—barters market investing and dubious local business connections. Our naive entrepreneur thus unwittingly acquires stock in an Internet start-up and a coffin company; a capable landscaping staff of 15 and the sponsorship of a hulking boxer named Joseph Powdermilk. There's a semi-climactic scuffle with some bad guys bent on appropriating the lawn business, but Joey Pow easily dispatches them. If there's tension here, it derives from the unremitting good news: While the reader may worry that Arnold's a rip-off artist, Joey Pow will blow his fight, or (at the very least) the parents will go ballistic once clued in—all ends refreshingly well. The most complicated parts of this breezy affair are the chapter titles, which seem lifted from an officious, tenure-track academician's economics text. Capital! (Fiction. 9-12)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

At the start of this witty, quick-moving tale from the Newbery author, a 12-year-old receives an unexpected birthday present from his grandmother: his late grandfather's riding lawn mower. Since his family's lawn is postage-stamp size with grass that “never seemed to grow enough to need mowing,” he's initially unsure what to do with the machine. But he soon realizes that he can earn money mowing neighbors' lawns—perhaps even enough to buy a new inner tube for his bike. As the young entrepreneur's lawn-mowing business booms, he sees green in more ways than one, making enough money to buy countless inner tubes and learning a lesson about capitalism and investing. His teacher, a colorful ex-hippie named Arnold, is a down-on-his-luck stockbroker who brokers a barter deal with the lad, offering to invest his earnings for him in exchange for grass-cutting services. Repeatedly remarking how “groovy” Lawn Boy's success is, Arnold instructs his young pal in the rules of the business road, humorously reflected in Paulsen's chapter titles (such as “Capital Growth Coupled with the Principles of Production Expansion” and “Conflict Resolution and Its Effects on Economic Policy”). Adding further wry dimension to the plot are a tough-talking thug who threatens to take over the kid's business, the prize fighter whom Arnold (through another investment) arranges for Lawn Boy to sponsor, and the boy's delightfully—and deceptively—dotty grandmother, who gets the novel's sage last line: “You know, dear, Grandpa always said, take care of your tools and they'll take care of you.” Readers will find this madcap story a wise investment of their time. Ages 10-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(June)

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7-Learning the workings of the free-market economy has never been more fun than in this tall tale of entrepreneurship set in Eden Prairie, MN. When the narrator's grandmother gives him an old rider mower for his 12th birthday, his life changes; he senses "some kind of force behind it." Almost as soon as he figures out how to run it, the boy is in business-by the second day he has eight jobs. When he mows the lawn of Arnold Howell, an aging hippie e-trader, the cash-poor man offers a stock-market account in lieu of payment. Arnold not only invests the money; he also offers business advice. Soon lawn boy has a partner, 15 employees, a lot of money invested in the market, and a prizefighter. Chapter headings suggest business principles behind what is happening. Throughout the tale, the narrator is innocent of his success as he rises early each morning to begin each job, eats lunch on the mower, and longs for a less-hectic summer vacation. This rags-to-riches success story has colorful characters, a villain, and enough tongue-in-cheek humor to make it an enjoyable selection for the whole family.-Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Voice of Youth Advocates

Tucked deep within a lesson in economics is an actual young adult story, or so Paulsen would have readers believe in this story of a young boy who receives a riding lawn mower from his grandmother for his twelfth birthday. Before long, the nameless narrator is befriended by a neighborly stocks expert, who invests his money in coffins. From there, it is all good as the narrator's money doubles, triples, quadruples to the point where he owns his own fighter, named Joey Pow. There is not very much to the story beyond that. As the money accumulates, so do the problems, such as dealing with an extortionist named Rock, but at under one hundred pages, this book is a trifling at best. It would have been more interesting and realistic to read about a kid struggling to keep his lawn business afloat all summer, with hilarious results, but that is not the story Paulsen is telling. Nor does he make much effort to go anywhere most readers are anxious to follow. A typical chapter heading is "Economic Expansion Combined with Portfolio Diversification." A fun mental image is to picture this book as a how-to bible in the hands of some diehard young entrepreneur, but in reality the only ones who are going to be eager for the book are economics teachers salivating over the chance to meet their students halfway.-Matthew Weaver.