Stop the Presses, Ida Mae!

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Ida Mae Evans Eats Ants introduced readers to the 12-year-old title
character and her family, consisting of younger brother Emmanuel, her
bank manager father and health-food-store-owning mother, and
octogenarian Great-Aunt Glory. In Ida Mae’s second term at East Lake
Middle School, she and best friends Michael Rumple and Erika Larkin are
delighted at being invited to join the Teller, the school’s newspaper.
Ida Mae’s initial euphoria quickly disappears, however, when she
accidentally damages Erika’s laptop computer and must borrow $125 from
her father, to be charged against her allowance, to pay for the repairs.
Seeking ways to clear her debt faster, Ida Mae decides to play the stock
market surreptitiously by getting her great-aunt to purchase stocks for
her. To raise money to buy a few initial shares, Ida Mae parlays the
success of her popular school-paper astrology column into a
“business” wherein she charges her schoolmates for doing their tarot
readings. All goes well for Ida Mae, both personally and financially,
until some of her tarot clients demand refunds since following her
advice has led to disaster. As well, Ida Mae’s “greedy” decision
to reinvest her profits from secure stocks in high-risk mining shares
causes her to lose money on the stock exchange. However, all ends well
as Great-Aunt Glory comes to Ida Mae’s rescue. The good
characterization and delightfully amusing plot will leave readers in
Grades 3 to 6 looking forward to future instalments of Ida Mae Evans’s
life story. Recommended.