This is a nice little series by Kelly Lee. Her website Econ For Kids includes many tools to help educate kids ages 4-8. More on that in a minute. Here’s the link to “Little Economists.”
Who Should Read These Books?
Are you parenting a
- Banker
- Business owner
- Day trader
- Venture capitalist
- Economist?
If your answer to even one of those questions is, “Yes”, these books are for you. This also applies to grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, and/or cousins.
Fig01 Cover
But It’s Not Real Economics
This can’t be real economics. Where is the math? Or statistics? Where are the graphs?
Just kidding. I think it’s unrealistic to expect eight-year-olds to know that stuff. Author and publisher Kelly Lee says the book targets ages 4-8. I’ll add that I know quite a few adults who would benefit from these books. And the content is pretty accurate and far more readable than, say the popular college microeconomics textbook authored by Hal Varian. The focus is on scarcity and choice, the basic tenets of economics. You will not find income and substitution effects, the dread Giffen goods, or even the Keynesian income-expenditure multiplier.
This series currently has seven very short volumes. (This review only looks at the first five.) The best way to describe the contents is with a couple of sample pages:
Fig02 sample pages (click for larger image)
Summary
You get the idea. Charlie (a rabbit) has wants and needs. His wants sometimes are constrained by his budget. And away we go.
There are five books in the boxed set:
- What Is Money?
- How to Spend Wisely.
- What Is a Credit Card?
- What Is Supply and Demand?
- What Is Inflation?
Synopsis
Charlie owns a shop that sells cookies and ice cream sandwiches. The cookies are made on-site using a secret recipe. He uses some cookies to make the ice cream sandwiches. (Charlie presumably buys the ice cream.) One key ingredient in his cookies is flour. Charlie buys his flour from a local mill run by his pal Alex. But along comes a year when the weather causes the wheat crop to partly fail. Less wheat means a decrease in the supply of flour. When Charlie runs out of flour he pays Alex a visit. When he discovered the price of flour had doubled (due to the decrease in supply), Charlie buys less flour and produces fewer cookies. He, naturally, raises the price. Thus he learns about downward-sloping demand curves caused by his customers’ budget constraints. (I’ve taken the liberty of translating the kid-speak into low-level econ-talk.) The volume ends on a hopeful note with Charlie and a customer hoping for better weather next year.
Econ-Talk (Optional)
Let’s lapse into econ-talk. The book on inflation says the increase in the price of flour was caused by inflation. But the books makes it clear that the real cause was a decrease in supply. This confusion about inflation is pretty common. Inflation does not measure the increase of the price of any single good. It is an increase in the average price level including a large basket of goods. For the GDP deflator, the basket is all goods and services produced in a country during a calendar year. For the consumer price index (CPI), it’s the average price paid for goods and services by the average urban household during a year.
But that’s a quibble that only an economist could love. This series ain’t perfect, but it’s pretty darn good.
Pricing
Fig03 Pricing (click for larger image)
As noted earlier, I reviewed only the box set of volumes 1-5, not the Conversation Cards or books 6 and 7. But if you’re interested in exposing children to economic, business, and personal finance principles, this is a very good place to start.
Disclaimer: after I started this review, I corresponded with Kelly. She was just starting her affiliate program. I immediately signed up. Here are my affiliate links for the five volume sets https://www.econforkids.com/products/little-economists-box-set-1-books-1-5?sca_ref=9827244.DUHbFrgz5wy and for the seven volumes https://www.econforkids.com/products/littleeconomistsbundle?sca_ref=9827244.DUHbFrgz5wy. Clicking those links costs you nothing. You only pay for what you buy. Contact: Econ for Kids, 525 Gold St Unit 72, Alviso, CA, 95002.
