I thought this was such an interesting concept for a children’s series! This book in the series follows Chance as he starts up a pool cleaning business. This chapter book for middle-grade kids takes the reader on a journey with Chance as he learns how to get people to work with him, how to figure out what people should pay for his services, and all the other things that happen to a business owner.

I really loved that this focused on a younger person who opens a business. It’s a fun story, and yet it gives real-life information about owning and running your own business. The chapters are short, and perfect for a middle-grade reader. The content is easy to understand. It doesn’t read like a business text book, but like a fun story that has great information for a child to learn from!

Where to Find This Book:

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble

Chance Sterling launches a pool cleaning business over the summer. Join Chance as he looks for new customers, discovers how much to charge them, takes on a business partner, recruits an employee, deals with difficult clients, and figures out how to make a profit. He has twelve weeks to reach his goal. Will he make it? Only if he takes some chances.

KidVenture stories are business adventures where kids figure out how to market their company, understand risk, and negotiate. Each chapter ends with a challenge, including business decisions, ethical dilemmas and interpersonal conflict for young readers to wrestle with. As the story progresses, the characters track revenue, costs, profit margin, and other key metrics which are explained in simple, fun ways that tie into the story.

Just the Facts:

Kidventure: Twelve Weeks to Midnight Blue by Steve Searfoss
Genre: Childrens
Publisher: Self-Published
Pub Date: January 2020

I wrote my first KidVenture book after years of making up stories to teach my kids about business and economics. Whenever they’d ask how something works or why things were a certain way, I would say, “Let’s pretend you have a business that sells…” and off we’d go. What would start as a simple hypothetical to explain a concept would become an adventure spanning several days as my kids would come back with new questions which would spawn more plot twists. Rather than give them quick answers, I tried to create cliffhangers to get them to really think through an idea and make the experience as interactive as possible.

I try to bring that same spirit of fun, curiosity and challenge to each KidVenture book. That’s why every chapter ends with a dilemma and a set of questions. KidVenture books are fun for kids to read alone, and even more fun to read together and discuss. There are plenty of books where kids learn about being doctors and astronauts and firefighters. There are hardly any where they learn what it’s like to run small business. KidVenture is different. The companies the kids start are modest and simple, but the themes are serious and important.

I’m an entrepreneur who has started a half dozen or so businesses and have had my share of failures. My dad was an entrepreneur and as a kid I used to love asking him about his business and learning the ins and outs of what to do and not do. Mistakes make the best stories — and the best lessons. I wanted to write a business book that was realistic, where you get to see the characters stumble and wander and reset, the way entrepreneurs do in real life. Unlike most books and movies where business is portrayed as easy, where all you need is one good idea and the desire to be successful, the characters in KidVenture find that every day brings new problems to solve.

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Thank you to IRead Book Tours for having me on this tour! You can see all the bloggers on tour here!

I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

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