Dirt Cheap

A young entrepreneur sets out to earn some money and discovers the value of a dollar (and of dirt)! Perfect for fans of Lemonade in Winter, The Most Magnificent Thing, and Rosie Revere, Engineer. Birdie doesn’t know much about money. All she knows is that she wants a new soccer ball that costs $24.95. The fastest way to that $24.95 is going into sales, but what to sell? All her belongings? Not much of a market for those. Birdie needs something that she has in abundance and that everyone needs. So when she sees everyone in her neighborhood working on their yards, she realizes she’s hit pay dirt. Literally! Soon Birdie is raking in the dough, with profits of all varieties: quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, even dollar bills! Now she can buy that soccer ball, but does her business plan have any holes? An industrious tale about striking it rich! A terrific treatise for early financial literacy that subtly teaches about worth determination, pricing structures, coin values, marketing techniques, and the reward of hard work, all supported by a delightful story with a round-headed protagonist in amusingly huge, face-swallowing glasses and itty-bitty pigtails.–Booklist Our heroine has a positive outlook and doesn’t let things get her down. The book demonstrates how even a young child can be a great entrepreneur. A light, fun, and -educational tale that would work wonderfully as a two-voice read-aloud.–SLJ Hoffman’s acrylic and color pencil illustrations are pleasingly eccentric. There’s a stealthy math lesson here as Birdie counts her coins, and her can-do attitude makes for a nice message about the value of hard work.–The Bulletin Hoffmann cleverly intertwines early math skills with messages of working toward goals and problem-solving. Worth it, dirt and all.–Kirkus