Let’s start with Gordon Korman’s Swindle. What is the economics content here?

The youngster in this book is concerned about his family finances. His father is an inventor and an innovator who has left his regular job and they don’t have much of an income stream. Their house is going on the market; he is worried about having to move away, and he’s desperate to stay. Then he finds a rare baseball card and he realises that at auction it can go for close to $1m. He takes it to a dealer and the dealer convinces this boy and his friend that the card is not worth very much at all, and he gets just $120 for it. Later he finds out that the card was authentic and that he’s been swindled. That’s all economics in terms of the family finances and the value of the card. It’s a scarce card, so it’s worth quite a bit of money.

The entertaining part and the reason I like it so much is that the boy and his friends put together a little SWAT team. It’s fabulous entertainment in terms of their antics, what they do to get the card back. It’s very, very exciting, a fun read, and a real page-turner. Gordon Korman is a well-known author and the story is very well done.

What about The Not-So-Great Depression by Amy Goldman Koss?

This is also about family finances and difficulties but it’s linked to the current financial crisis. So there is a bit of an explanation about how the US got into trouble, with people taking out mortgage loans on which they could not sustain the changing interest payments, and how banks got into trouble because people weren’t paying back their mortgages. But it is a novel so it personalises it in the case of this family. It’s headed by a single mother (the parents are divorced), and she loses her job. Before, the mother was a high-powered woman who was paid a lot of money and the two girls had everything they wanted. Now, step by step, they have to give up most of what they’ve got used to, including their nice house. It talks about the adjustments that the kids have had to make from the point of view of the teenager who is telling the story. It’s very well done. It’s a lot of real economics, mixed with teen angst, a little romance and a sense of humour.

I think a lot of adults – even some Nobel prize-winning economists – are still having trouble understanding exactly what happened in the financial crisis.

Exactly. The book is highly relevant and very timely. It’s not an analysis of the crisis, but a couple of pages worth of some fundamental ideas, in teenager speak, of what happened – without being too much of a lecture. It’s not dry, it’s not didactic, which is why I put it in my top five.

At the end the girls are a lot less privileged then?

Yes, and they become closer as a result. They become closer as a family and the children also get past themselves. They’re better able to see the world around them in realistic terms. They become more open-minded, in a healthy way.

And the title suggests things aren’t that bad…

Yes, it’s a pun on the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it’s not so much about the magnitude – I think the pun is on the idea that things are not so wonderful. The family is not going through a great time; it is in fact a difficult period. I think that’s the play on the word great – it’s not fun. 

Next you’ve chosen a book called Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins, which is set in Burma/Myanmar.

This one is quite different from the first two – there is nothing about family finances. The main concepts are forced labour, specifically in the military in Myanmar, and also child labour, child education and the economics of conflict. It’s all wrapped up in a story about a country that most of us, even adults, don’t know very much about. The author did quite a bit of research and she did interviews. She’s got some insights so that anyone can learn a bit more about what is going on in Myanmar and why it is so difficult for people to maintain their wellbeing there. The two main characters are both boys, young teenagers, and one is drafted. He’s forced into the military – he’d rather be in school. The other boy is living in the jungle; he is a rebel fighter.