Isabel's Car Wash
Kindergarten-Grade 4—Isabel wants to buy a doll that costs 10 dollars, but she only has 50 cents. She looks around for a way to earn the money and settles on washing cars. At the hardware store, she discovers that the necessary soap and "shammies" will cost five dollars. She asks five friends to each give her a dollar, promising that she'll soon return it plus a little more, and uses the money to buy the supplies. Isabel is a hard worker and her business takes off. At the end of the day, she has 20 dollars. Keeping half for herself, she pays each friend two dollars. Everybody wins: Isabel earns enough for the doll and her investors make a profit doing nothing at all. It's American capitalism at work! The cartoon illustrations look rather 1950s-ish, featuring characters with long, skinny limbs and large, round faces. The pictures are colorful and help simplify this rather wordy book about a complicated topic. An author's note explains stock-market basics. This is a good primer for budding entrepreneurs.—Ieva Bates, Ann Arbor District Library, MICopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.