15 Financial Literacy Books For Kids 15 And Under
Offering Parents or grown ups ways to teach them young with The Kids Guide To Money
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“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.”
-Walt Disney
As we say all the time here at Future Funders, we believe teaching financial literacy to our kids can give them financial freedom and is one of life’s most important tasks. There are many ways to go about it as we seek to really teach them how to use money as a tool to live the life they want (as well as financial independence).
One of the special ways we can have our kids achieve financial literacy is through the many incredible books out there teaching important money concepts. Below, we have handpicked the 15 best financial literacy books that we love for children between the ages of 3 and 15 that teach a range of money concepts in an effort to give you a place to start.
This list of books is meant to provide you with engaging, child-friendly titles that begin laying the foundation of financial literacy for children. Each book below has a brief summary, with some suggestions at the end for other short activities that extend your child’s learning and experience with money in concrete ways. Read on for more!
One Cent, Two Cents, Old Cent, New Cent
Age Range: 3 years to 9 years old
Author: Bonnie Worth
Our Take: This is a great one to start with younger children because it has the oh-so-familiar Cat in the Hat character they probably know and already love. The book starts with the very beginnings around the concept of money. It describes trade and early forms of currency–including seashells!
The book explains how the need for money to last eventually brought about coins while giving a visual understanding to kids that might remind them a bit of Minecraft (if they have played it).
Should you want to follow up with some coin identifying exercises check out this awesome Dr. Suess Coins and Money resource for extra practice, or if you are looking for a free resource we have a downloadable money counting sheet available too, just CLICK HERE.
About the book: The Cat in the Hat puts to rest any notion that money grows on trees in this super simple look at numismatics, the study of money and its history.
Beginning with the ancient practice of bartering, the Cat explains various forms of money used in different cultures, from shells, feathers, leather, and jade to metal ingots to coins (including the smallest—the BB-like Indian fanam—and the largest—the 8-foot-wide, ship-sinking limestone ones from the Islands of Yap!), to the current king of currency, paper.
Also included is a look at banking, from the use of temples as the first banks to the concept of gaining or paying interest, and a step-by-step guide to minting coins. A fascinating introduction is bound to change young reader’s appreciation for change!
Earn It!
Age Range: 3 years old to 5 years old
Author: Cinders McLeod
Our Take: Earn It! (along with other “Moneybunny” books by Cinders McLeod, Save It!, Spend It!, and Give It!) is a very adorable and quick read for kids in primary grades. The book uses a simple question and answer format between a child bunny and her mother. Kids see how making a plan to work to in order to earn can help them achieve goals in life.
About the book: Bun wants to be rich and famous. She loves to sing and knows she’s meant for a career on stage.
It should all be pretty easy—her mom can just drive her to the concert hall to perform! But her mom reminds her that most good things, like the garden they are growing, take time and work.
At first, Bun isn’t terribly excited by the idea of singing lessons and practice, but as she does the math and daydreams about her future singing career, the more she starts to like the idea of earning her way to stardom—a feeling just as good as being rich and famous!
Money Plan
Age Range: 4 years old to 7 years old
Author: Monica Eaton
Our Take: Primary age kids will relate well to this book’s main character, little girl Mia, as she goes to the grocery store with her mom on a Saturday morning. She wants some ice cream bars, but they don’t have “ice cream bar money” in their money plan.
So, Mia’s mom begins telling her about planning where your money goes with a budget and how to earn with a job. With fun rhyming text teaching these tough concepts, this book will engage and delight. Kids won’t know they’re learning!
About the book: Money Plan offers a clever approach to teaching young readers about money, saving, budgeting, and working hard. Told in rhyming verse, the story follows Mia and her mommy on their Saturday morning trip to the grocery store. When Mia spots her favorite treat, she gets her first introduction to money management.
Let’s Explore Needs and Wants
Age: 4 years old to 7 years old
Author: Laura Hamilton Waxman
Our Take: This book delves more specifically into helping kids understand the difference between wants and needs. It stops and asks questions along the way so that parents and children can pause and reflect on what they truly are and how to prioritize them. The use of real photos rather than illustrations will help young ones to grasp that these are important life skills to learn.
About the book: Young readers will learn to distinguish between the things they really need (food and clothing) and the things they want (toys!) in this fun, fresh look at wants and needs.
If You Made A Million
Age: 4 years old to 8 years old
Author: David M. Schwartz
Our Take: This book written by David M. Schwartz and illustrated by Steven Kellogg we liked especially as it shows images of real coins and cash on its pages.
This will help elementary children–especially those in 1st and 2nd grade–to learn to recognize the different types of currency; students in these grade levels typically are learning how to identify and count money, along with some adding and subtracting of it.
3rd graders can even benefit from this story as a read aloud, because once basic money understanding is there, parents can start to expand upon ideas like banks and interest or other financial institutions.
About the book: Have you ever wanted to make a million dollars? Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician is ready, willing, and able to explain the nuts and bolts -- as well as the mystery and wonder -- of earning money, investing it, accruing dividends and interest, and watching savings grow. Hey, you never know! An ALA Notable Book A Horn Book Fanfare Selection A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Teachers' Choices Selection
Money Ninja
Age: 4 years old to 7 years old
Author: Mary Nhin
Our Take: This adorable little money ninja will teach kids about what it means to save, invest, and donate the money you might make. Although it doesn’t go into as much depth explaining what each term means, it does a great job relating how money can affect our lives and make us feel. This book also gives real world tips to kids about using money as an every day skill which we liked.
About the book: Money Ninja takes a friend on a journey of saving, investing, and donating. Find out what happens in this comedic book about delayed gratification and money-savvy skills. Life is hard! And it's even harder for children who are just trying to figure things out.
The Penny Pot
Age: 6 years old to 10 years old
Author: Stuart J. Murphy
Our Take: The Penny Pot is a wonderful story about a girl who wants her face painted and doesn’t quite have enough money. She decides to see if enough extra pennies are donated to the penny pot in the booth so she can get it done.
After several kids come and go, she has enough for her own face to be painted! This book has a nice, fun story that reinforces patience, kindness, and how to count coins. Check out some of these ideas for your own savings challenge penny savings pot!
About the book: The Penny Pot is perfect for teaching counting coins to second, third, and fourth graders. Life-size coins and a cat named Chester will soon have readers confidently counting coins along with Jessie and her friends at the face-painting booth.
Kids will love the story and the funny illustrations by Lynne Cravath. Parents, grown ups and other educators will love how the story and pictures make understanding comparisons a breeze—as well as the concrete examples of how math works!
The book contains activities for adults to do with kids to extend math into their own lives!
The Berenstain Bears' Dollars and Sense
Age: 3 years old to 7 years old
Author: Stan Berenstain
Our Take: The idea of writing checks may be a thing of the past for most people in 2022, but the value of keeping track of expenses in a list has not yet gone out of style. This book will teach children that planning how to use your money–so you don’t find yourself with none–is simpler when you see it on paper. Try out some of the huge library of extension worksheets for this book by clicking here!
About the book: Brother and Sister Bear know some things about money. They know that money can be used to buy things like baseball cards, ice cream, candy, and balloons. What they don't know is how to manage their allowances.
Then Mama comes up with a terrific idea to help them learn the value of money and how to save it -- a checkbook! A series of tear-out checks is included in the book so that kids can use them at home just like the cubs do in Bear Country.
Money Monsters: The Missing Money
Age: 5 years old to 7 years old
Author: Okeoma Moronu Schreiner
Our Take: This book has multicultural characters and an innocent little boy whose first trip to the ATM has him worried! He thinks the monster machine ate his money and he doesn’t understand why his parents aren’t worried, too. Then, his mother explains to him about ATMs transferring money to the bank, and how to check on his money using a phone app. We loved how the modern ways we use money are explained within a story kids can understand.
About the book: A beautifully illustrated children's book about an imaginative little boy's first encounter with the banking system! The Missing Money follows Kai on his adventure to deposit his newly earned money.
While on his journey a seemingly scary ATM monster "eats" all of his money! Kai struggles to understand where his money has gone and just before attempting to break his money out, his mother sits him down to explain this confusing turn of events and helps put his mind at ease.
Get your copy now and your kids will enjoy the colorful illustrations in this wonderful story while learning the basics of money.
The Survival Guide for Money Smarts
Age: 9 years old to 14 years old
Author: Eric Braun
Our Take: Earn,save, spend, or give? That is what this financial literacy book will help readers to understand. Something different about this book choice from the others on our list is that it also delves into the idea of how money management and the way it is done can have social emotional effects on a person’s life–and says something about their character.
About the book: This survival guide introduces the basics of financial literacy and money management for kids—from earning and saving money to spending and donating it—and gives readers essential skills for financial know-how. The book also explores how choices about money and finances connect to character development and social-emotional well-being. Readers will find ideas for setting money goals, delaying gratification, being thrifty, building self-esteem, giving to charity, and making socially responsible spending and donating decisions.
Real World Money Lessons for Kids and Teens
Age: 7 years old to 14 years old
Author: Adam Toren and Matthew Toren
Our Take: This practical, no nonsense approach to understanding finances and money management aims to “fill in the gaps” kids don’t really learn in school on the subject. In addition to most of the other concepts the books in this list have touched on, this one teaches about capitalism, multiple streams of income, and credit, too!
About the book: In Real World Money Lessons for Kids and Teens, your children will learn concept like: What is money, what is capitalism, how to budget and track your money, multiple streams of income, credit, savings & investing and giving.
Savannah’s Savings Jar
Age: 8years old to 12 years old
Author: Chelsea Addison
Our Take: We loved the store here and the creative way it seeks to empower young girls with money knowledge. Savannah’s is a kid with a real entrepreneurial spirit when she starts learning about owning a business in class. She starts a slime business that is off to a great start–but then overspends her earnings and has to come up with a better way to manage!
About the book: Ten-year-old Savannah is given the nickname Saving Savannah by her friend, but it wasn’t always this way. She was assigned a project to start a business for class. Her teacher encourages the class and reminds them, “....All of you can become entrepreneurs.”
She meets this opportunity with determination to create a successful business and reach a financial goal. Savannah uses the funds from a grant her teacher was awarded to start her business. She names her business … Terrific Slimerrific!
Money Math
Age: 6 years old to 9 years old
Author: David A. Adler
Our Take: This book has information about which presidents are on money, and practice counting money. Also, its pages have problems to work out along the way and even explains decimals! Give the kids a workbook that doesn’t really seem like one and they’ll be taking a closer look at those Benjamins and Washingtons.
About the book: In this fun introduction to American currency, a variety of past presidents introduce themselves and their denominations. You'll learn who's on each coin and bill, and what they're worth-- and how many of one it takes to add up to another.
Dollars, cents, and decimals are explained in accessible, kid-friendly language, with tons of examples and try-it-yourself problems and activities. The mathematical concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division become hands-on in this innovative math book from trusted duo David A. Adler and Edward Miller, whose award-winning collaborations have been helping students tackle complicated problems for years.
The Lemonade War
Age: 8 years old to 12 years old
Author: Jacqueline Davies
Our Take: Unlike most of the books in this list, The Lemonade War is a novel. The short chapter book about a brother and sister who unintentionally find themselves competing for business is something kids can really relate to–sibling rivalry.
As you read along there are many economical concepts explained within the narrative, and even some math problems to work out with the characters. Take this learning experience one step further after reading and have your kiddo make their own stand!
Check out this idea for your own Lemonade War Project! We have supplies available should you need then on our curated toy library page.
About the book: Evan Treski is people-smart. He’s good at talking with people, even grownups. His younger sister Jessie, on the other hand, is math-smart—but not especially good at understanding people.
She knows that feelings are her weakest subject. With just five days left of summer vacation, Evan and Jessie launch an all-out war to see who can sell the most lemonade before school starts. As the battleground heats up, there really is no telling who will win—and even more important, if their fight will ever end.
B is for Bitcoin
Age: 4 years old to 9 years old
Author: Graeme Moore
Our Take: This one is special because it is current, fun, and teaches some major vocabulary and concepts under the premise of a super easy alphabet book. Although not intended for much older than 9, even high school kids can learn from this book because it put terms simply and illustrates them–and bitcoin/cryptocurrency isn’t initially easy to understand.
About the book: B is for Bitcoin teaches readers their ABCs using terminology used in the Bitcoin world like Altcoin, Bitcoin, Consensus, and more! Show off your love for Bitcoin by reading this book to your child, your friend, or even a nocoiner. You can even leave it on your coffee table so that you can explain what Bitcoin is for the 100th time to your guests.
Sadie Builds a Business
Age: 6 years old to 12 years old
Author: Will Scott
Our Take: Ok, so we gave you 16 instead of 15. We are clearly biased but wanted to include this one as it is Future Funders’s first children’s book that does a great job teaching saving and growing your money in creative ways as kids try to accomplish their goals.
It is an inspiring story that also touches on wants vs. needs as well as the concept of working, saving, and waiting for what we want in life. The concept of working and waiting, or deferred gratification, we believe is one of the most important qualities for our kids to learn about money and life.
About the book: Sadie Builds a Business is a fun and uplifting tale for parents who are trying to teach important money lessons to their kids.
On the way home from school one day, Sadie sees a super cool pair of roller skates sitting in a toy store window that she has to have but realizes she does not have enough money to pay for them.
Through creative thinking, determination, and some help from her friends she works to reach her goals along the way realizing she holds all the power within herself to make all her dreams come true!
