Whether it inspires them to start their own lemonade stands or to dream of making a million dollars in their futures, it’s rarely a bad time to start teaching kids about business. When they are taught money lessons, children learn not only how to manage their own money, but also the most efficient strategies for making money and how to nurture a solid business idea.
What are the best ways to teach kids about business and motivate their entrepreneurial spirits? How about business books for kids?
Why Books Are Great to Teach Kids Business
Books that teach kids about business are perfect for kid and teen entrepreneurs, as well as children who want to learn money management and business basics. In fact, business books can benefit young minds in the following ways:
- Improve financial literacy – If you’re looking for books that will teach your child to manage money, there are more than a few books for kids that teach financial literacy, including everything from saving money in a piggy bank to understanding cool financial technology from a young age.
- Learn business basics – If your child dreams of someday starting a successful business, then it’s never too early to start teaching them basic business principles with books. To have the best chance of someday running their own businesses, kids should learn things like how to develop negotiating skills and how to raise money for start-up costs.
- Inspire small business ideas – Some books are filled with all sorts of creative ideas for businesses you can start with your kids, including not only family business ideas but also some that kids can pursue as solo efforts.
- Understand hard work’s value – The long-term value of hard work can be a difficult concept for young children to grasp. Some business books are great tools for teaching children this valuable lesson through creative storytelling.
- Inspire to dream – Do you want your child to feel the freedom to dream of a successful future? Plenty of business books for kids employ the power of storytelling to inspire kids to nurture their entrepreneurial spirit and follow their own dreams.
Best Business Books for Preschool-aged Kids
It’s never too early to start teaching young kids about business. In fact, you can start teaching your children before they even learn to read with books targeting children their own age.
Interested in business books for preschool-aged kid entrepreneurs? The following choices are a great start:
1. When I’m an Entrepreneur
by Dr. Samantha Pillay (Author), Harry Aveira (Illustrator)+
Did you know that career gender stereotypes start to form during early childhood? So does self-efficacy. When I’m an Entrepreneur: Dreaming is Believing: Business features simple images that allow children to think about their own entrepreneurial spirit while building their self-belief. The unique picture book encourages children to dream big, and it includes a companion activity book to stimulate your child’s imagination.
After you’ve finished reading this totally awesome business book with your child, you can investigate the newspaper articles that appear in the book on the author’s website. While there, you even can explore even more fun facts about the image details.
2. What Do Grownups Do All Day?
by Virginie Morgand
Does your child wonder what you do at work all day? What about a firefighter, police officer or postal worker? What Do Grownups Do All Day? teaches children about these and more than 100 other jobs through 15 busy scenes set in diverse workplaces. Just turn the page to discover what each job entails!
Not only is this book packed with detailed scenes and information, but the visuals are sure to attract every young entrepreneur’s attention with hand-drawn shapes and bright colors that create vibrant images full of life and energy.
3. The Berenstain Bears’ Dollars and Sense
by Stan & Jan Berenstain
Parents love it when classic characters from beloved tales also can teach their children important life lessons. In The Berenstain Bears’ Dollars and Sense, Papa Bear thinks it’s time to teach Brother and Sister how to budget their money. Will the cubs learn the value of a dollar, or will their pockets remain empty?
In this engaging story for young children, Mama Bear devises a clever way to teach her cubs about money… in the form of a checkbook. Your children can learn right alongside Brother and Sister Bear as they learn money management through household activities.
4. It Began with Lemonade
by Gideon Sterer (Author), Lian Cho (Illustrator)
What can come from a simple lemonade stand? It Began with Lemonade tells the story of a spunky young girl who decides to set up a lemonade stand on a scorching hot day. Unfortunately, she soon discovers that too many entrepreneurs in her neighborhood had the same idea. Not to be deterred, the girl relocates her lemonade stand to the river’s edge, where she encounters some unexpected clientele.
Children, parents and critics love this book for preschools, who will cheer as the heroine satisfies customer after customer, including octopus babies, otters in hats, beavers doing the backstroke, dancing bunnies, clacking crabs and more. Steamboats, tugboats, and submarines line up for miles down the river, and the child stays open as long as she can, before treading home to dream of her next day’s business.
5. Baby’s First Business Book
by Andrew Dorazio (Author), Victoria Savanella (Illustrator)
A fun and exciting book for children of all ages, Baby’s First Business Book helps inspire young children who might want to start a business someday. Featuring the ABCs of important business terms, this book will prepare preschoolers for future business endeavors by inspiring courage and establishing a solid foundation for the future.
This business book for kids was not only written to inspire young entrepreneurs but also inspired by one of them. The author, an entrepreneur himself, was inspired to write the book by the birth of his own daughter.
Books to Teach School-aged Kids About Business
While there are a plethora of business books for preschool kids and teen entrepreneurs, there are even more business books for school-aged children. From storybooks to instruction manuals and everything in between, you’ll find business books for school-aged kids that cover any topic, including:
6. Lunch Money
by Andrew Clements (Author), Brian Selznick (Illustrator)
Lunch Money takes a look at the obstacles entrepreneurs encounter, including finding a market, hurdling regulations and dealing with money’s influence. With illustrations from Brian Selznick, the book is a great way to capture kids’ attention while they learn about business.
Any little entrepreneur will be inspired to look for business opportunities as they follow the adventures of Greg, who discovers that almost every kid has at least a quarter left over from lunch.
When you read this business book with your kids, you’ll see their eyes light up as they eagerly wait to see what else Greg discovers. Whether you’ve got a little entrepreneur on your hands, or you’d like to inspire a little entrepreneurial thinking, this book will help.
7. Ethan’s BIG Business Plan
by Yu-Ting Hung and Ethan Hsu
The biggest lesson found in Ethan’s BIG Business Plan is controlling your destiny, followed by lessons in spotting opportunities, selling products and managing money. With the lessons from this book, your little one can apply its real-world concepts to their first business and continue to grow with each experience.
The next time your kid throws a tantrum at the supermarket because you said “No!” — grab this book! This business book teaches kids to make their own plans in order to reach their spending goals. It’s a fun, well-structured way to help kids think through finances and the strategies to make it all work.
8. What Do You Do With an Idea?
by Kobi Yamada
The author of What Do You Do With an Idea? recognizes that ideas are living things. If nurtured and fostered, they can grow into something much bigger. The language and illustrations in this book will touch your heart so much that you’ll read it for yourself as much as your kids.
Every great business starts with an idea, but ideas can be fragile. Ignore them and they die; share them with the wrong people, and you can be convinced to quit. Every budding entrepreneur will love this story about a child, his anthropomorphized idea, and how he brings it into the world.
This award-winning New York Times national bestselling book is full of life lessons, including perseverance and confidence in both yourself and your ideas, even if no one else believes.
9. Kid Start-Up
by Mark Cuban, Shaan Patel and Ian McCue
When kids read Kid Start-Up: How YOU Can Become an Entrepreneur, they’ll learn how to spot opportunities, calculate demand and do the work to launch their businesses. While the business book includes the obvious “lemonade stand,” it also explores starting online businesses like an Etsy store. If you read this book with your kids, you just might discover your next family business.
Celebrity “shark” Mark Cuban is well known for being a dad, so it only makes sense that he would partner up to write a kidpreneur book. Written for elementary school-age kids, this book teaches valuable lessons such as hard work, perseverance and collaboration.
10. Starting Your Own Business
by Adam Toren, Matthew Toren
Completing projects step by step is a great way for a child to learn about the business world, as each project is an opportunity to further explore their ideas. Starting Your Own Business: Become an Entrepreneur! features engaging icons, eye-catching images and even spaces for the reader to write answers to open-ended questions. The book concludes with words of encouragement and a helpful glossary.
Part of the “Dummies” series of books written by brothers Matthew and Adam Torren, this business book is ideal for the budding kid entrepreneur who has an idea and needs practical steps to transform it into a business. This informative book covers topics like the basics of entrepreneurial success, how to find your big idea, how to make a plan (and what to do with it once you’ve created it), budgets, marketing, product or service delivery and customer service.
Top Business Books for Teen Budding Entrepreneurs
Is the special teenager in your life interested in business, or do they have a brilliant business idea that you want to help them bring to fruition? Business books are a perfect way to help teen entrepreneurs explore their dreams. Looking for the ideal business book to inspire your teenage child? Take a look at the following masterpieces:
11. Become the Youngest Businessperson in Town
by Thomas Henderson
If the teen in your life dreams of starting their own business someday, there’s no time like the present. In Become the Youngest Businessperson in Town: 111 Teen Business Ideas, the author presents all sorts of business ideas for teens, including simple $100 plans to grand personal projects.
Have a teen without a business idea who still would like to watch money grow? This book provides them with plenty of useful ideas, as well. Not only does it offer plenty of feasible ideas for any budget, but it also offers plenty of direction tips for finding success with those business ventures.
12. Teen Entrepreneurship
by Jack Rosenthal
This book for any teenage kid entrepreneur was written by the author of Teen Investing, Amazon’s No. 2 book on teen investing. In his young entrepreneur’s guide, Rosenthal educates fellow teens on everything it takes to become a successful young entrepreneur.
Teen Entrepreneurship: The #1 Book for Teenage Entrepreneurs is remarkable because it not only was written for teen entrepreneurs but it was written by one, as well. Rosenthal was a 19-year-old student in Massachusetts when the book was published, but he already had been an entrepreneur and investor for 10 years, working on numerous ventures.
13. The Money Club
by Jasmine Brown
Has your teen ever agonized over math, wondering when they will use it in the real world? If you don’t have the answers, perhaps a professional educator might. Written by a passionate teacher, Money Club: A Teenage Guide to Financial Literacy covers even the most daunting topics with entertaining stories and real-life inspired classroom scenarios.
This user-friendly guide offers practical advice and open conversation on aspects of money management, including topics such as bank accounts, budgeting, credit cards and managing money after high school.
14. First to a Million
by Dan Sheeks
If your teen never fulfilled their childhood dream of becoming a lemonade stand millionaire, then First to a Million could be the perfect book for them. Written for young adults, this is a fun guide packed with the many advantages of financial independence, and it includes the secrets of investing, living frugally and maintaining an entrepreneurial mindset.
When teens treat their finances differently than most of their peers, the perspective will put them miles ahead of their peers on their journeys toward financial independence. It doesn’t matter if they didn’t start out as the richest kids on the block, they have time to let that compounding interest transform their futures.
15. 10 Steps to Your First Small Business
by Adam Lean
If you want to help your teen start their own business, then there’s no better business book than this step-by-step guide that covers everything needed to start a business from start to finish. After completing each of the steps described in 10 Steps to Your First Small Business (For Teens), teen entrepreneurs will have successfully launched their businesses.
The plan described in this book makes starting a business fun, approachable and realistic for teens. The text explains how to come up with a good business idea, as well as how to start a business with little or no money. It even includes 50 small business ideas that teens can start.
More Sources of Business Ideas for Kids
If the special young business person in your life has read all the business books on this list or is looking for additional resources, we have more suggestions. After all, there’s more advice available than the kind found in books. Check out the following free resources for budding entrepreneurs and anyone looking for business ideas for kids:
- Kidpreneur Magazine — This digital magazine for young entrepreneurs features articles with advice and guidance for children and high school students — and their parents. From preparing children for entrepreneurship to encouraging their ideas, parents and kids will find practical help and inspiration in Kidpreneur Magazine.
- Business Ideas for Teens – Ready to jump right into starting a business? Or, perhaps you want to research business startup concepts along with reading a good business book or two. Business Ideas for Teens offers plenty of ideas so that high school students can easily start a business at home. The suggestions don’t require much money, and none are very complex.
- Book Apps for Kids – Plenty of kids in 2023 prefer to consume content electrically via their tablets, smartphones and computers, as opposed to physical books. Fortunately, they can take advantage of any of the best book apps for kids of any age range, available for Apple, Android, Microsoft and other devices. Some apps, such as Epic, feature thousands of titles written for young readers, including business books for kids in digital form.
- National Lemonade Day – Did you know there’s a holiday just for encouraging young entrepreneurs? National Lemonade Day occurs annually on the first Sunday of May. The event is a great way to show community support while showing children the value of entrepreneurship.
- Startup Savings Tools – Any young person will be more committed to success if he or she has skin in the game. Teach young people how to forgo spending their allowance on discretionary items, and instead save it up to start a business. See our savings calculator to get started.
What is the best business book for younger kids?
The best business book for younger kids largely depends on your objective for introducing the book. If you are in search of a business-related storybook for younger children, then you might choose a title like the Berenstain Bears’ Dollars and Sense. However, if you want your child to read a business book that serves as a guide to starting a business, then an informational text like Kid Startup could be a perfect choice.
What is the best business book for teens?
Ask a dozen teens what is the best business book for them, and you might get 12 different answers. That’s because the best business book for a teenage reader depends entirely on the young adult’s tastes and goals.
Those looking for a collection of big ideas for businesses definitely should check out Become the Youngest Businessperson in Town. However, if the teen reader wants to become educated on entrepreneurship, they won’t want to miss reading Teen Entrepreneurship.
What are the best entrepreneur books for kids?
There are plenty of great books to inspire kids interested in entrepreneurship, as well as for parents who want to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in their children’s minds. When I’m an Entrepreneur teaches young readers how to dream and strive toward a business career. Likewise, What Do You Do With an Idea? uses storytelling to illustrate how great ideas can become a successful business.
How can you get kids excited about their own business?
Kids start developing lifelong passions at an early age. While the ways to get kids excited about starting their own businesses are practically limitless, business books written especially for kids of any age range – in words that kids understand – have proven to be a highly effective strategy.
Whether kids are learning money ninja life hacks to enhance their financial literacy, they are understanding how to open a business bank account, or they are discovering why it’s important to retain customers, there is a children’s book available to present the concepts.
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This article, "The 15 Best Business Books for Kids" was first published on Small Business Trends