ONCE UPON A COMPANY: A True Story

by Wendy Anderson Halperin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

Halperin (When Chicken Grow Teeth, 1996, etc.) offers an ode to young entrepreneurs who happen to be her children, and the involvement of relatives, neighbors, and friends. Joel, Lane, and Kale collectively narrate how the November doldrums in rural coniferous Michigan led to their starting a business with the clippings from a neighbor's Christmas tree farm. The business became the College Fund Wreath Company, intended to cam money for the children's educations. It starts out as a modest affair, with a sideline during the summer months in a lemonade stand, but grows and grows until it is a full-fledged enterprise renting out space downtown, filling wholesale orders, taking on employees. The folksy tone and endearing details hold interest, and the can-do attitude is borne out by the results--$16,000 taken in as the book closes on a helpful glossary. The illustrations--delicate, vivacious clusters of pencil-and-watercolor images of people working--generate a light of their own, turning each righthand page into a multi-framed visual telling that enhances the anecdotes and intrigue of the text on the left.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Orchard

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998

Categories: CHILDREN'S