Writing a book about earning money—working, that is—that will engage most young kids is no small potato, which is probably one of the reasons we are a nation of debtors. Kinch gives the task a dutiful stab here. The artwork is coolly designerish, with Pretty Penny a doll-like packet of energy—brassy, bossy, determined—racing about her grandmother’s big old house with her pet pig, Iggy (whose nostrils look suspiciously like the coin slot in a piggy bank). But the delivery of the story is painfully metronomic—“She racks her brain for one of her big ideas. Nothing comes to her. She just has to wait. And wait some more…Suddenly she has it—a really big idea!” The big idea is to finance a birthday party for her grandmother by staging a sort of yard sale up in her grandmother’s attic, selling all her old, unwanted stuff. So Penny affixes price tags and invites the neighbors over to her “small mall,” all the while skipping about, swinging her arms like a madwoman and beaming. Despite its emphasis on community and sensible behavior, the leitmotif—financial fundamentals are fun—feels desperately forced. (Picture book. 4-8)
