The Toothpaste Millionaire
Title: The Toothpaste Millionaire
Author: Jean Merrill
Pages: 129
Grade Level: 3&4
Lexile Level: 820L
Rufus Mayflower and Kate MacKinstrey meet one morning on the way to school. Kate’s book strap tears and her books fly everywhere. Rufus helps her pick them up and offers to help her make a bag to go on her bike. This starts an unusual, but wonderful friendship. Rufus likes to make things and Kate likes to write things, so they make quite a pair.
One day they are shopping at a drugstore because Rufus needs to buy toothpaste. Rufus can’t believe how much toothpaste costs! He can make it for so much cheaper, so he decides to buy the ingredients and make it. As it turns out, Rufus can make about forty tubes of toothpaste for the price of one bottle of toothpaste.
Soon, Rufus is making and selling toothpaste. He bottles it in small baby food jars. He figures out that it costs him about $.02 to make a jar of toothpaste. He thinks he can sell it for $.03 and make a bit of profit. One day after school, Kate and Rufus sterilize a bunch of baby food jars and fill them with toothpaste. Then they go around the neighborhood and sell them. They sell quite a few jars, but they need more advertising. Kate writes to local radio station and Rufus is featured on the show. In the next few days they receive 689 orders for toothpaste.
The sales continue to come in, but Kate has a bigger problem: Rufus’s birthday is coming up. She really wants to give him tubes to put toothpaste in for his birthday, but she can’t find any. Finally she finds an auction that is selling odd things. The next day she goes to the sale and buys 7,200 tubes for five dollars!
Now they have a bigger problem with the tubes! They can stuff the toothpaste in the bottom, but it is time-consuming. What they need is a toothpaste filling machine. Kate looks at the boxes of tubes that she bought and notices an address. She goes looking for the building and met Hector. Hector had worked for the previous company and knew all about the machines that were in the building. So now, they have a mechanic, a machine and a building. All they need is a business loan to finance the mechanic, the machine and the building. Unfortunately, the bank won’t loan money to twelve year old boy. Read to the book to continue following the story of how their business expanded.
This an entertaining book about an enterprising duo! It’s a great lesson in economy and perseverance. Kids of all ages will enjoy reading this book and who knows, maybe it will inspire them to build their company!
