''No Coins, Please'' is a 1984 children's novel by

Gordon Korman Gordon Korman (born October 23, 1963) is a Canadian author of children's and young adult fiction books. Korman's books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide over a career spanning four decades and have appeared at number one on ''The N ...

. The book is recommended for grades 6-8, and 820L on the

Lexile The Lexile Framework for Reading is an educational tool in the United States that uses a measure called a Lexile to match readers with reading resources such as books and articles. Readers and texts are assigned a Lexile score, where lower scor ...

measure.

Plot

Juniortours is an outfit that drives children across America during the summer months. When Group Ambulance's Artie Geller, a precocious 11-year-old

con artist A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibi ...

from

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

signs on, counselors Rob and Dennis find they have more than the usual summer job on their hands. From the streets of New York City to the casinos of

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

, Artie proves as slippery as ever.

Reception

'' Hazlitt'' has called it a "Canadian classic". ''CM: A Reviewing Journal of Canadian Materials for Young People '', the journal of the

Canadian Library Association The Canadian Library Association (CLA) was a national, predominantly English-language association which represented 57,000 library workers across Canada. It also spoke for the interests of the 21 million Canadians who are members of libraries. C ...

, faulted its "rather wooden characters" and its "repetitive" plot, but noted that younger readers would likely ignore these aspects. In 2017, Nicole Dieker revisited the book for '' The Billfold''. Dieker noted that what makes the book "delightful" is "how logical Artie's whole enterprise is", and praised Korman for revealing that Artie had not been able to avoid being noticed by law enforcement; however, she also emphasized that upon rereading the book as an adult, it became more clear to her that "Artie isn’t a good person".

Publication history

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References

External links

Reviews

* {{Gordon Korman 1984 Canadian novels 1984 children's books Novels by Gordon Korman