Friday, May 15, 2020

Dirt Cheap by Mark Hoffman - OPTIONAL

Dirt Cheap by Mark Hoffman PICTURE BOOK Alfred A. Knopf (Penguin Random House), 2020 $18. 9781524719944 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3) - OPTIONAL 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE 

The cost of a new soccer ball is about $25, so this little entrepreneur has some great ideas to raise some money. When a yard sale doesn't do it, she decides to sell dirt, by the bag for .25 a bag. Boy, is she popular! People are coming from all over to buy her dirt and soon she raises enough capital to buy the soccer ball. But now, she has no yard to pay with it in - she sold it all as dirt. Now she'll have to think of something else, because replacing her yard with topsoil is expensive. 

An interesting way to teach children the value of money. There was a clever illustration that showed all the different ways to make .25 no one paid in paper money so she had to drag a huge bag of coins to the sporting goods store. That's a heavy bag. While I applaud her ingenuity, I didn't love the story - the voice that explains things to her "there's lots of ways to make 25 cents" was strange - I wish it had been a character - if it's an adult, they certainly weren't very helpful as the girl got herself into quite a pickle.

Lisa Librarian

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