[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.