The Outsmarters

"Eleven-year-old Kate lives with her grandmother, who runs a junk shop in a big old house on the outskirts of town. It sometimes feels sad to be in the business of collecting other people's leftover stuff, but Kate knows sad. She's a bit lonely, and she doesn't remember her mother, who left long ago. Still, Kate dreams that one day her mother will return, and when she does, she'll need money. So Kate sets out to make some, just in case. At first she wants to offer psychiatric advice, like Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon. Gran squashes that idea: 'You are not a psychiatrist. You'll just get sued.' But what about a philosopher, who Gran says is just someone who thinks deeply about important things. 'I do that all the time,' Kate says, and soon she opens up a Philosophy Booth to provide answers to life's big and small questions for $2 a pop"