A loyal MR reader asks:
I would like to start introducing my daughter (age
to the concepts
of economics. She is a voracious reader so I thought that might be a
great place to start her thinking like an economist (on the other had,
she dismisses anything her father tells her out of hand)
Do you have any suggestions on books that would be great for a 3rd or 4th grader?
Any suggestions?
I’ve been wondering about the same questions myself Dr. Cowen. I recommend the book “What Ever Happened to Penny Candy”. I’m VERY interested in more resources myself.
Ever seen the Ducktales episode on inflation and monetary policy?
Well you can go classic, Ragged Dick and Mark the Match Boy, Horatio Alger. A bit dated and sugar coated, but those were the stories that turned me on to capitalism.
Thidwick the Good-Hearted Moose by Dr. Suess. An excellent lesson in free riding that kids really enjoy.
Johan Folin,
If you mean the Ducktales Episode, I believe it was “Shangra-la-di-da” or some approximation of that.
My own kids learned about incentives for all sorts of things in their daily lives. But I would also recommend “I Pencil” which in fairly simple terms explains market coordination.
I think Russ Roberts over @ CafeHayek did a podcast with a woman who was teaching Economics to young students, probably about 8 years of age. You might surf over to his list of podcasts @ econlib.org and see if you can find it. It was one of his first podcasts, IIRC.
Whatever you do, stay away from the Barbar the Elephant stories. When Barbar
modernizes his kingdom, he establishes two bureaus, one for production – the Bureau of
Industry, and one for consumption – the Bureau of Culture.
Atlas Shrugged is a good 3rd grade read. She could probably digest it over her week-long winter break.
One of my favourite books as a child (1st grade) was The Toothpaste Millionaire, by Jean Merrill. Nicely simple treatment of microeconomic issues like production costs, economies of scale, the ability of large businesses to undercut small ones, etc. I should go back and reread it, it’s been decades since the last time….
Children like fantasy, so perhaps start her with The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money? It’s not that much harder to read than The Silmarillion, and while it has fewer elves, the magic powers ascribed to the government make for an enchanting fairy tale.
The New York Fed publishes a series of witty (and free!) comic books on economic topics.
My kids really liked The Story of Money and A Penny Saved. Now there are maybe a dozen
comics available, and I’m going to order a bunch of the rest.
You can see them all at http://www.ny.frb.org/publications/result.cfm?comics=1
“you see, the cowardly lion is Williams Jennings Bryan…”
I think that third and fourth graders are more intelligent than most people realize. They are merely ignorant and emotionally immature.
I suggest Free To Choose by Milton Friedman. It’s simple enough that even a congressman can understand it. It is getting them to read it that is the rub….
I recommend The Giver by Lois Lowry. It’s about what society gives up when you try to protect it from all harm. I read it in 6th grade and loved it!
In the Carl Barks vein, another great story of his is “A Financial Fable,” detailing the short- and long-term effects of doubling the money supply (or in this case having a tornado redistribute Scrooge’s money to everyone else). Everyone, vastly “richer” than they were before, rushes out to spend their new-found wealth, only to find that everyone else has stopped working to do the same. In the end Scrooge, the only one with foresight enough to keep working, makes his fortune back by raising his prices accordingly.
“The Golden Helmet” is also a Barks gem; here’s the Wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Helmet.
Floyd Gottfredson’s “The Monarch of Medioka” is such a vicious and rewarding satire of bureaucracy, aristocracy, elitism, and traditionalism it was banned in Yugoslavia — you almost forget it’s a Mickey Mouse story.
Don Rosa’s “His Majesty McDuck” is also worth a read if you want to introduce the main criticisms of anracho-capitalist societies.
I bought a video game Harvest Moon to my daughter when she was 8 years old. It’s fun for her. She learned to make decisions through the game. For example, the player learns to earn money through working; to borrow mortgage from the bank and repay the loan; to make a decision between consumption and investment (to buy a pretty cloth or to buy a fishing rod); to weigh the cost and selling price of a product; and to select plants to grow in the best season.
The game has real time setting – day and night; month and year. If the player doesn’t get enough rest, she/he would get tired or sick and would miss work. And the player has to wait for a period of time before harvest.
You can get more information from Wikipedia by typing in Harvest Moon.
Not a book, but Kingdom of Loathing?
Much easier than my comments.
The best books to begin understanding economics at any age are Richard Maybury’s Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? and The Money Mystery. The rest of his Uncle Eric series are excellent reads as well.
Other recommendations would include: Capitalism for Kids, The Adventures of Jonathon Gullible, If You Made a Million, How Much Is a Million? and I, Pencil
I would personally discourage anyone from reading economics textbooks which are full of economic fallacies and are also incredibly boring.
Anything published by a government subsidiary such as the FED’s comics on A Penny Saved and the Story of Money
will undoubtedly reveal a conflict of interest that manifests itself in the way it attributes the rise of American central banking to a public outcry for regulation rather than a scheme conceived of by bankers, and sold to the public by Congressman and professors.
Hope this helps!
And no offense to those who advocate college textbooks or comics from the FED, I just don’t see the merits of those sources.
In all seriousness, the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder is perfect. My kids and I recently finished Farmer Boy. See Almanzo learn from his mother how to negotiate a price with cool calculating ferocity. Or, see the whole family work night and day harvesting potatoes to get the best price on the day the buyer comes up from New York City.
“The How and Why Wonder Book of Coins and Currency.” One is on sale at eBay
http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-HOW-AND-WHY-WONDER-BOOK-OF-COINS-AND-CURRENCY-1965_W0QQitemZ110065586549QQihZ001QQcategoryZ279QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
There is also a Sylvester the Cat cartoon which features a mouse that is also an economics professor. And he actually talks about economics. Don’t know where you could find that
“The Giving Tree”, of course
Perhaps a bit too old for kids, but I loved the Henry Spearman novels by “Marshall Jevons” (actually a pair of economists, William Breit and Kenneth Elzinga): _Fatal Equilibrium_, _Murder at the Margin_, _A Deadly Indifference_.
Reading a book is not the best way to learn things… especially for an 8 year old.
Working for money that is then used to buy useful and enjoyable things, that’s far and away the best way to learn economics. No comparison.
Give the kid a rake! You’ll be the best parent on your block.
Here’s an anti-suggestion:
Whatever you do, make sure that if she plays Monopoly she realizes that it’s a strange alternate universe that bears almost no relation to a real market that’s characterized by competition and choice.
(Also, I’m starting think that the key to understanding economics is understanding the miracle of compound interest and basic lessons in budgets, supply and demand, etc. which can all be taught on a trip to the supermarket. Think in terms of micro, day-to-day decisions. Micro, micro, micro!)
An Island Called Liberty is wonderful, all 3 of my kids have read it.
I taught the Uncle Eric books for three years before deciding to get a degree in Economics. I also used the Settlers of Catan with my students. My 5 & 6 year old love it, too. If you play Monopoly use pencil and paper to keep track of accounts, it’s a good arithmetic exercise and it makes it harder for anyone to cheat (if everyone keeps track of everyone else’s balances.) FEE published “Free Market Economics: A Basic Reader” years ago – currently out of print, but get it from interlibrary loan and make good “fair use” of it. Lois Lowry is great, and not just The Giver, but also Finding Blue. They are a great intro to Rand’s Anthem.
Most of all, practice good economics in your home. Most good models of thinking are just as readily “caught” as they are “taught”. BTW my handle is a direct reflection of the impact Maybury has had on me.
I have been trying for years to find Primo Dinero. I believe we used it in 6th grade, 1969-1970.
I think it was the simplest description of economics/sociology for kids. I did not remember the “The Adventures of ” part, so all of my searches have turned up nothing.
Thank for the full title, if you find it somewhere let me know. I want to use it to help my kids understand economics.
I remember Primo started out as a hunter gather, became a trader, developed currency and civilization ensued.
An excellent cartoon from Warner Bros, that incidentally explains the importance of capital, is “Heir Conditioned”.
The cartoon was released in 1955 and features Sylvester the Cat and Elmer Fudd. In the cartoon, Sylvester inherits a fortune and foolishly wants to blow all of his money. Elmer Fudd demonstrates how capitalism works and explains how investing his money makes more jobs and money for everyone. “Heir conditioned” is one cartoon, from a series of three or four, produced in conjunction with the Sloan Foundation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_LWQQrpSc4#GU5U2spHI_4
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