New book series teaches children about business

First title preaches fiscal prudence, entrepreneurship

Raphael Talisman⁄The Star Author Lori Nelson of Bowie reads her new book, ‘‘Hillary’s Big Business Adventure,” to a group of third- and fifth-graders Tuesday at Arrowhead Elementary School in Upper Marlboro.

Nelson eventually got the roller skates she wanted – a pair with rubber wheels instead of the inferior metal ones – by holding a yard sale and earning the money to buy them herself.

‘‘I was so young, I didn’t realize I was learning business concepts,” Nelson said.

But today, the 34-year-old Nelson is using her new children’s book, ‘‘Hillary’s Big Business Adventure,” to teach kids what she learned about earning and saving money rather than just spending it.

‘‘I’m trying to teach kids that money does not grow on trees, but it does grow if you know what to do,” said Nelson, who visited Arrowhead Elementary School students Tuesday to discuss her book, which came out in January.

A goal of the book is to help avoid ‘‘raising a generation of spenders,” said Nelson, a Bowie resident.

The book, which Nelson said is based upon her own childhood experience, chronicles an entrepreneurial fifth-grade girl who enlists the help of friends to stage a yard sale so she can buy a new bike. The characters who, like Nelson, are from Baltimore create a business strategy that involves putting advertisements all over town and collecting an inventory from friends and neighbors.

After the successful yard sale, Hillary, the main character, donates the unsold goods and uses her share of the profits to buy the bike. She sets up a savings account with what is left.

Nelson urged Arrowhead students to be young entrepreneurs by finding ways to make money instead of relying on their parents when they want to buy something. She also urged them to save half the money they earned, donate 10 percent to charity and use the rest to buy what they want.

‘‘The only thing I want you to remember is not to spend all your money at the mall, because you’re just making somebody else rich,” Nelson told a group of sixth-graders.

Cenetria Blocker, Arrowhead’s reading specialist, said Nelson’s lessons are important because while students learn about money at an early age in math class, they ‘‘don’t learn as much about saving.”

Friends Eric Woods and Noah Fitzgerald already are young businessmen. The two fifth-graders are trying to start a business selling homemade movies around their neighborhood in Capitol Heights, Woods said.

Noah said Nelson’s presentation was useful, ‘‘It’s going to help me make sure I actually save some money.”

Third-grader Marian Kamara of Upper Marlboro said, ‘‘I learned you should save money and donate money to charity, too.”

Nelson has no background in writing. But she said she had been toying with the idea for ‘‘Hillary’s Big Business Adventure” for years.

Nelson said she did substitute teaching in the Montgomery County school system between 1997 and 2000 while she pursued a graduate degree in computer science at the University of Maryland, University College.

As a substitute teacher, Nelson said she realized that young students know how to spend money, but have no appreciation for the work that goes into getting it.

‘‘I would observe that kids had no concept of money; of what it takes for parents to buy the new sneakers they want,” Nelson said.

The book’s main characters are black, Hispanic and Asian American because, ‘‘I knew the kids who really needed these lessons and weren’t getting them at home were people of color,” Nelson said.

The book is the first in a series that Nelson plans to publish through her company, Nelson Publishing. Future installments will address more of Hillary’s business ventures as well as her friends’ pursuits of cooking, theater and other arts, she said.