Alexander complains about he many frivolous ways he spent the money his grandmother gave him. ( )

This is an engaging book. It is didactic, but also fun to read! It helps teach concepts of money. One can use it to make calculations and for probability.

The genre of this book is realistic fiction because even though it is made up, it could really happen. The pictures are hand-drawn with a pen and black and white. It is about a boy named Alexander who cannot save his money. He always finds things to waste his money on and he can't understand why his brothers have money and all he has are bus tokens. It is realistic because often times kids do not understand the concept of saving money. They always want to spend their money which is exactly what Alexander did. I think the reading level is probably second grade. There are several words per page but many of them repeat. This book was funny because Alexander could not save any money. You could give your students a lesson on saving money after reading this book and ask them what they would do to save their money. It could also lead to a lesson on counting money. The curricular connections are: money, saving, spending, and realistic goals. ( )

Alexander details how he went from being rich to broke through a series of poor economic choices.

Lexile 570, GRL O, RL 3.5