Saving Money

Saving Money is one of four books in Crabtree’s “All About Money” series. Each book begins in exactly the same way in terms of its opening two pages of text (see Excerpt above) with the exception of the last two lines which delineate that particular book’s purpose. Each book is a mixture of factual information, doled out in short chunks, and a simple storyline.

In the “All About Money” series, illustrator Beatriz Castro provides inclusive, cartoon-like artwork in which the content contained in the characters’ speech balloons links with the main text, usually by personalizing some aspect of the main text. Following an unplanned spending spree involving the book’s central character and a friend, the main text reads:

After Amanda went home, Marek laid on the sofa watching TV. He still felt sick from the candy and upset about all the money he spent.

In the accompanying illustration, Marek can be seen on the couch with the television turned on. The speech bubble connected to the person on the tv screen explains: “More people than ever are suffering from buyer’s remorse. This means feeling bad, guilty, or regretful about a purchase.”

The storyline in Saving Money revolves around Marek who puts most of his weekly allowance into his piggy bank. His friend, Amanda, however, spends all of her allowance money very quickly. One day while visiting, Amanda convinces Marek to empty his piggy bank, and the pair go on a spending spree that consumes a month of Marek’s allowance monies. “The friends buy a big pile of candy and donuts and eat way too much. Soon afterward, they both feel sick.” In addition to his physical discomfort, Marek also experiences buyer’s remorse, especially because the money he spent had been earmarked for a new scooter. Dad comes up with the idea of Marek’s splitting his weekly allowance, putting half in a jar labeled “Savings” and the other half in the “Spending” jar”. Mom later adds the idea of creating a thermometer-like savings chart so that Marek can visually follow his progress towards the scooter’s cost. A motivated Marek increases his savings by adding monies from odd jobs he does. (A nice touch that reinforces the ideas found in Earning Money.) As the Savings jar begins to fill to overflowing, mother and son go to the bank and open a savings account for Marek (who is given a bank book!) Near the end of Saving Money, Hubbard provides a link to Spending Money as Marek dips into his Spending jar to purchase an “in” piece of clothing, and again experiences buyer’s remorse. Marek learns from his mistake and “decides not to spend any more money on clothes. Instead, he will save all his money until he reaches his scooter target.”

The closing three pages in the books in the “All About Money” series consist of a five-question multiple choice “Quiz” page, a “Money Words” page that defines words that have been bolded in the text and a page of “Money facts” trivia. In Saving Money , one of the facts is that “The first credit card was called the Diners Card. It was invented by Frank McNamara after he forgot to bring his wallet to a restaurant in 1949.”

In Saving Money, Hubbard has created a scenario to which children (and a lot of adults) can connect, that of the competition between immediate and delayed gratification. The book provides the target audience with a good introduction to the concept of saving.