Financial Matters! by Leann Voss
Financial Matters! …are very important issues to tackle when teaching our children. This book targets children and those teaching children. It is a good style to use stories and episodes of activities to teach children – they can remember a good story. However, I found the dialogue in the book, Financial Matters!, to be stiff and awkward. It seemed to have the old, “See Jane and Dick run” type phrasing. As a matter of fact I pulled out my old 2nd grade reader written in the mid 1950’s and its flow was much smoother.
Because of the awkward story telling I found it difficult to finish. As well, I did not see anything new in areas of stewardship. Yet, if you look closer into the stories, themselves, you can find an asset underneath the unnatural dialogue. For example, several real life situations are used to illustrate how our everyday activities of shopping, going to restaurants, etc. can all affect ones total net assets. We are taken through various episodes from everyday budgeting to planning for retirement and how all are an important part of we how manage our finances the whole of our lives.
Certainly, each episode could be used for a class discussion… The topics, themselves, are good. But if I was going to use this book I would likely read and paraphrase the dialogue so it would flow in a less awkward manner.
Reviewed by: Rev. Cecil H Cook, Senior Pastor of Main Street Christian Church. Rev. Cook has a BA from Butler University (Indianapolis) and an M-Div from Christian Theological Seminary (Indianapolis).