This is a very informational and interesting book. It's like a mini-textbook for money. I love that it starts out before money in the prehistoric age and slowly moves into explaining trade and barter systems and then to the necessity of money. It explains how money has changed throughout time all over the world. The illustrations of all the different kinds of early coins is so cool. The only problem with this book is that it is dated and some information is no longer accurate. I see that the publication date is 1993. Since then, Europe has switched to using Euros so each country no longer uses its own form of currency. So no more Francs or Marks. The rest of this book is so great that I would still read it but would keep in mind to teach my students about Euros. ( )

This book gives historical evidence of the way money was used, and how it started. It shows in pictures what countries used what money and in what years.

I liked this book as an introduction to the complexities of the modern global economy. Many of today's students have experience handling money or watching their parents handle money, but have not had explicit instruction in how and why we use money the way we do. The book goes all the way back to the basics of bartering and trading, and tells the history of coins, paper money, and commodities. Although it is written for young children, I think this book would be great in a middle school math classroom to start a unit on the economy, since lots of math and money applications do not address the historical context. ( )

1. Summary - This historical realism book tells of how people didn't have a purpose for money so they bartered which turned into trade. Mainly they used salt at first among other things such as eggs, barley, wheat, rugs, etc. but they needed to find a way to trade for goods in a way that the goods wouldn't spoil before the other person received them. Lydia, which is in Turkey was the first place to come up with actual coins while Sumerians were the first to try silver. Eventually the coins as money idea was adopted by other governments and it has evolved ever since. It talks of how China didn't have a good supply of metal to make the coins so they continued to barter and used paper money.

2. Personal Reaction - I thought this book was very informative and interesting. I think some of the classes around 5th-8th grade would enjoy this.

3. Extension Ideas -
1. I could use this as supplemental history material.
2. I could use this book as part of a geography lesson
3. I could use this book as expanding vocabulary, many kids now don't know what barter or counterfeit means.

This takes us through the history of money. I think it is good for students to know the history of money and where it is going snd where it came from. We learn that money came from trade when people used to trade goods. When people began to trade from others far far away we needed some other sort of payment. That is why money was invented. ( )