A Smart Girl's Guide to Money: How to Make It, Save It, and Spend It by Nancy Holyoke, Ali Douglass (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

This addition to the popular Smart Girl's Guide series shows girls the "ins and outs" of money smarts. Quizzes, tips, and quotes from girls make learning about saving money fun. Includes a special section with 101 money-making ideas. A link at americangirl.com offers girls the opportunity to print business cards, flyers, and other materials to get their moneymaking ideas up and running with style.

VOYA

This user-friendly introduction to managing money offers common sense about making, spending, saving, and giving. Holyoke advises readers to separate emotion from goals and develop techniques for money communication. She cites good habits and paying attention as the foundation of good management and illustrates how the teenager can assess her talents, figure profits, work with partners, organize workspace, meet client expectations, and troubleshoot. Spending includes advice on shopping smart, refusing to buy, analyzing advertising, and dealing with plastic money. Saving considers habits, budgeting, earning money with money, building wealth, and the reality that rich is a relative term driven by individual expectations. The eye-catching illustrations and examples will appeal most to the middle school and junior high group. The consciousness-raising quizzes throughout the book complement the concrete, practical examples. A list of 101 possible money-making projects concludes the book. The weakest and most abstract section is "making money with money," which generally explains interest accounts, CDs, savings bonds, stocks, and mutual funds. American Girl invites the successful money manager to share ideas with American Girl magazine and directs them to the American Girl website to make business cards and supplies. The Web site is helpful, but it also directs the user to additional American Girl products. The book is good preparation for publications such as TeenVestor: The Practical Investment Guide for Teens and Their Parents (Perigree/Berkley Publishing Group, 2002/VOYA June 2002)), which contains more depth and detail.

School Library Journal

Gr 5 Up-Presented in a colorful and fun format, this book is attractive and practical. Examples used are timely and age appropriate. Quizzes throughout reinforce the concepts presented and will help readers question current spending habits. The "101 money-making ideas" are practical and doable and range from completing chores to using individual talents and skills to start a business. Some of the ideas suggested could be used for fund-raising activities. Customer satisfaction, writing contracts, and sharing responsibilities are clearly discussed and will help prevent future problems. This book will be an excellent tool to promote the concept of saving money and having it work for you. A Web site is provided for printable items and business cards. A first purchase.-Kathleen A. Nester, Downingtown High Ninth Grade Center, PA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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