Be Smart About Your Career.

Graham, Amy.  Be Smart About Your Career.  Enslow  2014     48p  $15.95  ISBN 978-0-7660-4286-5  hs  series: Be Smart About Money & Financial Literacy  Nonfiction  VG-BN

Intended for a high-school readership, this book provides advice for making post-secondary decisions about further education or training, identifying career interests and understanding income.  At the end of each chapter there is a good/bad list of things to consider when making decisions related to one’s future.  Simple math and word problems help to put the chapter information into perspective.  The book is a slim volume and presents just the basics of each issue. However, it is a good starting point to introduce post-secondary decision-making to high-school students at any grade level.  The explanations are simple and clear, with many practical examples given. The book includes a glossary, lists of additional resources, answers to math problems, and an index.

     

Summary: This book provides advice for making post-secondary decisions about further education or training, identifying career interests and understanding income. Gr 9-12   

Career, Employment, Personal finances           --Stephanie Pennucci

Be Smart About Shopping.

Kowalski, Kathiann M.   Be Smart About Shopping.  Enslow    2014  48p  $15.95  ISBN 978-0-7660-4283-4  series: Be Smart About Money & Financial Literacy  ms/jr  G           

This useful and educational volume encourages readers to make smart shopping choices, both in the type and manner of their expenditures. The book discovers prioritizing purchases, comparison shopping, protecting yourself and your privacy, and knowing your rights as a buyer.  Written by a qualified expert, the information in this volume is important and highly relevant in a world where younger people have access to credit cards at an early age.  Each chapter comes with questions for the reader to consider, with answers provided in the back of the book.  Some of these questions are more difficult than others, or require mathematical calculations. Unfortunately, there is not a hint of color in this volume, which makes it significantly less interesting to readers of any age.  Given that the subject is not one which is likely to attract too many young readers of their own volition, this is a grievous error. There is also a typographical error in the table of contents, where Chapter 6 reads “Consider the Bigger Pictur” instead of “Picture.”

Be Smart About Money & Financial Literacy is a five-title series that serves to instruct middle-school and junior-high-school students in responsible money matters.  

Summary: This useful and educational volume encourages readers to make smart shopping choices, both in the type and manner of their expenditures.

Home economics, Consumer education              --Bethany Geleskie