Smart, unique, and funny! It was difficult reading this book and thinking of 79¢ as an expensive price for toothpaste but other than feeling a little dated, this book is fantastic.

There's friendship and math, ingenuity and mention of not caring what race someone is.

I highly recommend this book for ages 9 and up.

This book goes well with units that deal with money or business. I often couple it with Frindle by Andrew Clements.

Fabulous book for 4th/5th grade girls and boys. The book shows kids working together to achieve an amazing goal. No difference according to sex or race. Just a win/win book for everyone with positive role models. Just good all around!!!!! And a fun read as well. Cannot wait to do PBL using this book as a model. Highly recommend!

I recently re-read this and loved it just as much as when I read it as a child. Toothpaste Millionaire is told from the perspective of Kate Macinstry as she details the period of time during middle school that her friend Rufus creates a plan to become a millionaire by selling toothpaste. Kate is a no-nonsense kind of girl so the story is told in a straightforward, no-nonsense kind of way which I enjoyed. Set in 1960s Ohio, Toothpaste Millionaire covers a wide range of topics including racism, descrimination in jobs, business, investment and the power of the media. It would be a great way to open up discussion about experiences that black children both had and have in schools and also the ways that children are treated differently due to their age. Lots of PSHE cross-curricular links alongside links to maths (the book is full of maths problems) literacy (scripts for advertisements and marketing) and DT (building rafts, machines with moving parts etc.)

For a book I read in elementary school, I remember quite a bit from this one. I thought it was a good book.

Very fun! Loved the math & the anti-capitalist undertones (kinda weird for a book about capitalism BUT so much of the book is pointing out how stupid the system is).

Just finished reading this to the children. Great book for those who love maths!

[a:Jean Merrill|79535|Jean Merrill|https://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/f_50x66-e0ba3b90c110cd67123d6a850d85373e.png] passed away last year (2012) and there was a thread on MetaFilter where people reminisced about how much her books had meant to them, and now I've finally gotten around to reading a couple of them. Of the two I read, The Toothpaste Millionaire is written for a somewhat younger audience than [b:The Pushcart War|542729|The Pushcart War|Jean Merrill|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1175650395s/542729.jpg|2092], but both were very smart and focused on challenging notions about race, class, and the ability of children and underdogs to make real change.

In The Toothpaste Millionaire, our young narrator Kate has just moved from a white suburban world to a predominantly black neighborhood in Cleveland, where she finds herself mostly ignored by the neighborhood children until a boy named Rufus befriends her. Rufus is full of big ideas and has a head for math, and after some calculations he determines that toothpaste companies are charging far too much for a product that he could make quite simply with some baking soda and a few other easily obtained ingredients. With Kate's help, he first sells toothpaste door-to-door, and later starts taking out national ads and selling in bulk through the mail. Always carefully doing math to make sure his decisions are prudent, Rufus grows the company first by recruiting other neighborhood children to help out, and eventually by opening a toothpaste plant of his own. Through his hard work and careful planning, he really does become an eighth-grade millionaire.

The Toothpaste Millionaire is written for a pretty young audience, but it's a smart book and takes the reader through all the decision-making steps of becoming an entrepreneur. It carries a strong message that children can succeed even when adults think they're too young to make good decisions. It's a great message, but told though an engaging story that never feels dry or preachy.