Sometimes when I lack ideas for this blog post I type 'children's books' into Google and then hit the news button. And thus, yesterday I found this article which asks 'Should you 'orange pill' children' and reports on new children's books about Bitcoin. Yes. Bitcoin.
I swear, I had to check the book titles to make sure this wasn't parody. It is written by a comedian. But no, these books do exist. You can order 99 Bitcoins and an Elephant (in which a young girl is lost in a huge department store that becomes flush with Bitcoin) from Waterstones. B for Bitcoin by Graeme Moore, apparently takes its inspiration from Dr Seuss, although with couplets like:" C is for consensus that the blockchain brings, D is for decentralization of all the things," I'd say Seuss can sleep easy.
It's easy to mock these books, but the question they pose is an important one - how far are children's books able to affect the outlooks of their readers? These books are trying to normalise the idea of investing in cryptocurrency, something that the authors fervently believe in. But, as the article reports even some Bitcoin enthusiasts don't want their children to read these books. One makes the point that there are very few books about money for kids: “In the United States, I would bet more than 99% of children are not exposed to any form of education on fiat or basic finance,” he says, adding there was a real “lack of financial literacy” as a result.
I would agree with this - in fact this was partly why I wrote my book Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery, a YA novel about a teenager who wins £8million (in 2012 when it was published that was a LOT of money. Inflation!) But the economics shouldn't get in the way of the story. I have always found though that on school visits there's a buzz of excitement when I talk about the lottery book. What would you do if you had millions of pounds is a universal way of getting attention. How to get those millions though?
Money is all around us in children's stories, if you look for it. Take Jack and the Beanstalk, for example - Jack invests in some crypto-magic beans and whooosh, his profits hit the sky. And then there's The Emperor's New Clothes. But perhaps their lessons aren't the ones that the orange pillers (I'm still not sure what that means) want to hear.
3 comments:
Keren:
In the film the Matrix there were blue pills and red pills.
Blue pills meant you stayed in the Matrix.
Red pills meant you knew everything about the real world.
There are also black pills.
And a great many Bitcoins and their properties are orange.
Wow! Bitcoin for kids! I'd never even have thought of it. Thanks for a fascinating post.
A great way to generate blog ideas, Keren! Crypto currencies, though. Argh.
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