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