More Economics Adventure for Kids in Book 2
Just as with the first book in this series, I wish I had been able to use it when I was teaching. I’m really glad a homeschooling friend clued me in. These books are fun, but they are also important.
In this second “economics for kids” adventure story, The Hidden Entrance, heroic duo Maya and Nate are now members of the secret Under the Staircase Society. The 12-year-old sister and 10-year-old brother are alert for clues, ciphers, and hidden doors that will help them and their few trusted friends deal with new challengers to their freedoms in their town and school.
The “bad guy” interloper this time is a former city official who helped run a neighboring town into bankruptcy. His sights are now set on Kirkcaldy Point and its new planning committee. The man’s son is running for president of Nate’s class in his elementary school, and the young newcomer has ideas for a school “central planning committee” which, as class president, he would control. “He’s just power hungry,” says Nate.
In danger is the well-loved, long-standing apprenticeship program that has operated successfully between town business owners and students. Nate is finally old enough to participate. It allows students to test out different trades or occupations that interest them. The new father and son “planners” in town are determined to dictate the choices for both owners and apprentices, and block owners who are seen as uncooperative, such as the hobby shop Nate wants to work for. Strangely, the new program asks a lot of invasive personal questions that are unnecessary for the process.
Running unopposed, the newcomer must be challenged and Nate is the students’ only hope. Will the reluctant hero agree to step up? He and Maya and their friends need help from the Society. Can they solve the mysteries and clues necessary? In time? Can Nate win the crucial debate?
Mom authors Lerner and Osornio work their genius once more in this brilliantly executed strategy to wrap young minds around the very real consequences of having, or not having, individual freedom and opportunity. The story involves Nate’s newly acquired, secondhand 3D printer, periscopes, a cipher wheel, a microdot, and a few heavyweight vocabulary words such as hubris, nemesis, and discerning.
The kids are introduced to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Cicero and meet a computer-generated Friedrich Hayek with his Road to Serfdom book. “Only in a free market can people truly prosper,” Hayek explains.
As I said in my review of Book 1, I would love to see these stories on the bookshelf of every teacher and kid (but only if they are convinced to choose them for themselves!).