I was hoping to use this in our homeschool when we do a financial smarts unit study. It’s a great graphic novel teaching financial literacy in everyday life situations but I found it to be too simple for the ages recommended.

I was curious what a book with this kind of blurb or cover would entail. The first thing that brought back a lot of memories is that I actually bought my second and (most used in childhood) cycle with my 'pocket money'. I put that in quotes because the concept was still new and quite random.
In this story, Maya wants to purchase a bicycle. Given what I know now of the current Indian cycle market, this conversation did not surprise me the least. Her parents cannot afford to buy it for her, so she decides to be entrepreneurial to ensure a means to the end. Each time she has to make a decision, a very basic financial concept is explained. The explanation does not take our attention away from the central plotline of Maya making her money, which was quite surprising and refreshing.
I think this is the perfect book to introduce the concepts discussed here with children. There is no possibility of vagueness and confusion if explained with such a relatable sequence of events! I highly recommend it for children or parents who want to talk about financial literacy with their kids.
I received this book as an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading.

I was excited to read the book, when I saw the title. There are not many books out there for older elementary children that teach about making money, let alone the setbacks one may encounter. The story starts off with Maya wanting a new bike and her mom letting her know they do not have the money for it. Maya's dad has her do some chores to make money and encourages her to think of other ways. What I really liked about the book is that all of Maya's ideas are not successful. A lot of times kids think they'll open a lemonade stand and make lots of money and that is just not the case. I also enjoyed how some of the words/phrases used throughout the story had definitions to make sure the reader knew what they meant.

I chose to read this book after receiving a free copy from Netgalley. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

Maya Makes Money is a comic book that teaches children about finances. It starts with Maya wanting her mom to buy her a bike, and her mom explains that there are bills that have to be paid. She suggests that Maya find a way to make money so that she can buy the bike herself.

Maya does as her mom suggests. She starts small by making money helping others. She also learns to watch for bargains when shopping for her mom.

Then, Maya has a big idea and although her first business venture seems to go well, she actually loses money. With her second business venture, she’s a success. And as she learns about starting a business, investing, getting donations, employees, profit, advertising, and everything else that goes with starting a business, the reader learns these things as well.

I wish this book had been around when I was a kid. My friend and I were always trying to think of ways to make a little money, but we had no idea how to even get started.

I enjoyed the illustrations in the graphic novel. The clothing was repetitive though ... I'm fine with the same styles day to day, especially because the children wear uniforms to school. But I found myself wondering why the colors of the shirts or dresses didn't change, from day to day.

In my humble opinion, this book is a teaching tool and children might find it very confusing to read on their own. I feel like it would do better in a school setting, where someone can talk to them about the financial terms. Knowing how I was as a child, this book would have confused me and didn't have enough story to keep me engaged. The financial terms would have overwhelmed me and were such a huge part of the story, that it would have been a struggle for it to keep my interest.

I received the book from netgalley for my honest review. This book teaches children about saving money, starting a business, and failing then bouncing back. This a great book that all children should read. It also teaches what some words mean. Great book! The book is written as a comic book.

If you've read any of my other recent book reviews, you'll already know that I start each one in the same way and that is to say that each books starts off with the full shebang of 5 stars and that I'm always hopeful that they will still be stuck firmly in place by the time I close the back cover.

The cover of this book seems to show a girl of about 9-10 years old riding a bike, but the description immediately makes me think that it's aimed at teens - I don't know how many 9 year old girls would be interested in the financing of a new bike (or any toy) they would just want it. I also don't know how many teens would even pick up the book showing a much younger child than them on the cover, even if they had started to get an interest in where money comes from to buy the things they want.

We shall see I guess!

Oooh! I like the "This book belongs to..." bit and it's got me thinking that it's for the newly confident reader so we shall see how the author handles the finance part... so far so good though.

Oooh! It's an illustrated book judging by the first page... it'll be interesting to see how it's handled and so far it seems to definitely for the newly confident reader as opposed to teens.

I'm not sure which country this book is set in, but over here in the UK it would be dangerous to send two children to buy vegetables at a market on their own. Judging by the age of the children in the illustrations I'd say they were about 9-10 and maybe 6-7 years old which would be waaay too young to send children out alone over here in the UK and would get too-young children pleading to go to shopping alone "because the children in the book did, so why can't I?"

Ah right, the currency that has been quoted is Rupees so it must be set in India where it seems to be a lot safer to move around and could get the conversation about other countries and the currencies they use to buy things started. Still a 5 star book in my eyes.

It's a great start to explaining budgeting and saving! I'm hoping I was wrong at the start of this review when I said it might be too complicated for newly confident readers... if it keeps on like this, it'll be a wonderful way to introduce it to youngsters to gain more of an understanding of money!

Ah right, Maya has just said she's 12, so the illustrations look a lot younger than she actually is. It makes more sense that she was able to go out with her brother to buy the vegetables now, but the illustrations need to show her as a few years older.

Ooh! Great going Dad... it encourages children to work for their money to prepare them for their job, rather than being bailed out all the time by their parents - great going by the author!

Great way to explain bargaining - not sure a shop over here in the UK would be willing to bargain over their prices though! lol

Great idea by Maya to make the snack at the school fete! I hope her parents give her the ingredients and support she needs to achieve it!

I was soo wrong about financial things being too advanced for the age group - there are real life examples and then a very short explanation about what each term means at the end of the page - fantastic work by the author!

What a great book! The last few pages were cut off mid-word, continued on the next page for another couple of words then you had to go back to the previous page to keep reading the sentence, which was a bit annoying and frustrating but still a well-deserved 5 stars.

This book is a great learning tool for kids who want to learn make their own money.
In this book it goes through all the steps the child has to take to make money on their own. It also makes it fun for the child to learn and be so excited about how they made their money. I think all children should read this book to try to do a business. Wether it being a money making business or making a non profit organization. Great book and a fun way to learn.

I received a free copy of the book and is voluntarily writing a review

Maya makes money is a lovely and very educative book for middle aged children who are learning the value of and idea of saving and spend money. It’s a book through which children can learn how to be more financial independent, specially in today world. The book teaches some very good concepts like bargaining, borrowing, paying back debts with interest, saving, difficulty faced while starting a business, etc.

I liked that the book conveys the message, that things don’t come easy in life and that everyone have to go through struggles and failures in life.

The only let down for me was that being a children book, I found it to be a bit too lengthy.

This book have beautifully illustrations and is written in a comic type of fashion, which takes it even more interesting to read.

Thanks to netgalley, the publisher and the author Diya Garg for this Arc.

This graphic novel tells the story of a girl named Maya who is learning about saving and spending money. Concepts like budgeting, borrowing and interest are discussed. The font is in a creative comic style, is fairly small and is tightly spaced in speech bubbles. It is in all caps, which does make it a little easier to read, but I could see some children struggling with the amount of text in each bubble. The concepts seem pretty well defined and examples are given so I think this would be a helpful tool to use when teaching young children about money. I would recommend this book to parents interested in supporting their children’s learning related to money. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.