Super-Smart Shopping: An Introduction To Financial Literacy, by Mattie Reynolds

This book is an interesting one, a short book written for a young audience that seeks to encourage them on how to be smart shoppers. The book implies that young people are able to help their parents with shopping by mastering simple aspects of mathematics, including the cost of a particular item at the store and the amount of units. Some stores, helpfully, include unit prices, but given the general lack of interest in basic math (to say nothing of more advanced math) among the adult population in the United States, this is not an unreasonable approach to take. If the book is more than a little basic, it is what it sets out to be, and that is an introductory guide to financial literacy that includes discussion about matters such as budgeting, couponing, and being able to price compare. These are all techniques that adults tend to use in order to keep their spending within appropriate boundaries, and the book helpfully introduces these techniques to the reader. This is the sort of book that one can read when one is young and then move on to more advanced reading later on, as this is more about basic concepts. It is certainly a helpful book for novice shoppers, although clearly far too basic for older and more experienced ones.

This book is a short one at 24 pages, which is one of the ways one knows that this is a book aimed for a young audience, perhaps even elementary school aged. The book is divided into three short chapters. The first chapter discusses why someone buys things, which encourages the reader to ponder whether a given item is necessary or worthwhile, as one can often save a lot of money by not spending it wastefully. (Admittedly, this is not always easy to do, but it is worth keeping in mind all the same.) The second chapter of the book then discusses how one makes good choices about how to buy things. This includes making choices about whether to buy or not as well as what to buy based on price and quantity and other related factors. The third chapter of the book then discusses how people shop, which is interesting, although admittedly as someone who does most of my shopping either locally or online is not always the most interesting. The book then ends with a glossary, resources for more information, and an index.