The Great Greene Heist

The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson is a school caper for 10 year olds, starring a schoolboy con artist who has promised, absolutely, to retire.

What happens

Jackson Greene is four months into model behaviour. He isn't allowed to carry a phone at school any more, so he's the only boy in the building still getting his messages folded up on paper. He spends lunchtimes pruning peonies for the Botany Club. He is trying very hard.

Then Charlie turns up in the school garden with news. Keith Sinclair has entered the race for Student Council president, weeks after the deadline, because the principal overruled the teacher who set it.

Keith's dad is about to move some money into an account. The principal is being very careful about which account he calls it. And Keith has found a rule in the Student Council bylaws that will let him shut down two school clubs without a single adult having to do it for him.

Jackson says he's finished with cons. He says it twice. He says it while picking Charlie's pocket mid conversation, and he says it again in a locked shed he got into by guessing his friend's padlock combination off a Star Trek figurine.

You can probably see where this is going.

Reading it is a pleasure mostly because of how much Jackson notices. He clocks the chocolate bars hidden behind the polystyrene cups in the staff room. He knows which teacher packs an extra sandwich. He can't walk past a lock without wanting it open.

The story keeps hopping between people, so your reader watches the plot from both ends at once. You see Keith bribing his way in shortly after you watch Jackson decide to do nothing about it. That's a lot of fun, and it's also where the tension comes from.

A note on the setting. This is an American middle school, so there's a Student Council, a school formal to find a date for, and sixth graders being courted for votes. There's a proper crush running underneath the plot as well. Gaby is still cross with Jackson over another girl, and her friends have OPINIONS about it. None of it is more than hand holding, but it does sit at the older end of this shelf.

What to read next

If your reader likes a plan with a lot of moving parts and a crew of specialists, The Good Thieves is another one. Vita puts together a pickpocket and some circus performers to break into a mansion in 1920s New York and get her grandfather's home back.