Through The Maize

 

KidVenture Vol. 3

Middle Grade Fiction

Date Published: 03-30-2023

  

Chance, Addie and Sophie launch a new venture when they get lost in the country and stumble on the idea of starting a corn maze business. They quickly discover that while it’s easy to rush into a maze, finding your way out is hard. They will need to convince an investor to fund the venture, persuade a reluctant farmer to let them build their maze on his corn field, and figure out a way to work with his headstrong nephew. Along the way they will realize just how little they know about planting corn, designing mazes and writing business plans. Through many twists and turns —and dead ends— they will learn how to keep a partnership together and what the true job of a leader is. There’s only one thing harder than finding your way out of a maze: creating a maze people want to get lost in.

My Review

I’m embarrassed to say the words “this is absolutely a wonderful story for young kids and for their families.” I’m embarrassed because I’m afraid you’ll think I’m just copying myself. This is the 3^rd KidVenture book I’ve read by Steve Searfoss, and I said the exact same thing about the others. I’m not copying myself. They are just great.

Chance, our KidVenture entrepreneur, has a new idea for a money-making enterprise this time. Through the Maize is a little more in depth than Chance’s pool cleaning or snow shoveling ventures. He’s learned a lot in his first two endeavors. Couldn’t have done any of them without his sisters and most certainly without his parents. His mentor, Dad, becomes the “Daddy Bank” for this latest idea of a corn maize. Now I know many daddies call themselves the Daddy bank, but this one works just like a bank. This Daddy bank works like any bank you or I have gone to if we needed a loan, a mortgage, no matter the amount of money. This one has terms, interest rates, and collateral. Poor Chance and his sister Addie even have to put their favorite bikes up for collateral.

All this is told in a fun story from a flat farmer’s field to a beautiful money-making venture. I’m not exactly sure how Searfoss makes this so fun and yet so educational at the same time. You can picture Chance and his Board (his sisters of course). Somehow you become a part of the whole venture.

I cannot stress how important this type of adventure is to read with your kids or to at least work through the questions at the end of each chapter with them. I bet both of you learn a lot about one another.

I think this is most useful and enjoyable to middle-grade readers and what they call the tweenage readers. The understanding of the book really depends not on the reading ability of a kid but on the maturity of the kid and the adult working through it with them. There cannot possibly be an adult that wouldn’t enjoy it. There can’t be anyone who wouldn’t learn from it. You know, a lot of us have been through our days of working for someone or ourselves. We’ve learned the profit and loss terms and so many more. But…there’s never a time we can’t learn, and I bet this sparks an adult mind as well as a younger person. Take the time to discuss it with your kids/teens.The understanding of the book really depends not on the reading ability of a kid but on the maturity of the kid and the adult working through it with them. There cannot possibly be an adult that wouldn’t enjoy it. There can’t be anyone who wouldn’t learn from it. You know, a lot of us have been through our days of working for someone or ourselves. We’ve learned the profit and loss terms and so many more. But…there’s never a time we can’t learn, and I bet this sparks an adult mind as well as a younger person. Take the time to discuss it with your kids/teens.

About the Author

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.

 

 

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 Read An Excerpt Below

 

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Through The Maize

KidVenture Vol 3: Through The Maize - Short Excerpt 

You might think running a successful business is like finding your way out of a maze. You’re stuck somewhere in the middle and you need to figure out which way to turn. So you go look for clues, you start exploring. You try one direction, then turn around when that one doesn’t work, until you find a path that isn’t a dead end. You might think that, or at least I did, but that’s not really how it works. Business is more complicated than that. The thing about a maze is that there is always a way out. There has to be. It was designed that way. And not only is there a way out, there’s only one way out. Only one way that’s right. So you’re pretty much guaranteed success, if only you try hard enough. What I found out is that being good at business, like being good at life, is more like knowing how to build a maze than knowing how to get out of a maze. And building a maze is much harder than getting through one. You see, creating something that people actually want to get lost in is hard. Really hard. Make the labyrinth too difficult to get out of, and they get frustrated and don’t want to do it anymore. But make it too easy, and they will resent the time they spent in it. You have to find how to challenge them just right and give them the satisfaction of finding their way out. Get it right, and they will tell their friends and more people will want to come to your maze. But if you get it wrong, well then you’re just sitting on a bunch of rotting corn in an empty field with footpaths no one wants to walk on in nonsensical patterns. www.kidventurebook.com KidVenture Vol 3: Through The Maize - Short Excerpt So you have to figure out where the walls should be, and where they should turn and not turn. You have to figure out how many fake exits to create, and when to make the path turn just so, to keep them hooked, and just as they thought they were lost, they start to see a way out. And most of all, you have to make the puzzle so interesting that they forget for a moment they’re inside a puzzle that someone else made. There’s only one way out of a maze, one right answer. But there are infinite ways to build a good maze. Getting out of a maze is like finding the right answer to a question. Building a maze is all about learning how to ask the right questions. Getting people to move in the direction you want them to move and have them think it was their idea is a lot harder than it sounds. That summer and fall, I became a Maze Maker. I was twelve years old