Follow Your Stuff: Who Makes It, Where Does it Come From, How Does it Get To You? by Kevin Sylvester and Michael Hlinka

Stars: ****

Annick Press (2019)
Children’s Nonfiction/Money
100 pages

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affiliate links.

Summary: Our cellphones, our clothes, our food: All are everyday things we consider essential, but we seldom think of what and who is involved in making them and getting them into our hands. In Follow Your Stuff, award-winning children’s author Kevin Sylvester and business professor Michael Hlinka team up again, this time to tackle the complex dynamics of the global economy, examining the often-complex journey of ordinary goods from production right to our doorsteps.

Using familiar examples, easy-to-follow charts and graphs, and a big helping of humor, Hlinka and Sylvester introduce young readers to concepts such as relative value and fair wages and how to think critically about our purchasing decisions. Sylvester’s lively illustrations add even more kid-appeal making this sequel to the critically acclaimed Follow Your Money the perfect introduction to socio-economics and an eye-opening essential read for young people.

Follow Your Stuff

Follow Your Stuff is the sequel to the Follow Your Money. Is this book, children can follow the path their items take from the raw materials to final sale in the stores. For example you can see the path your t-shirt takes from:

• cotton (including the price for seeds, fertilizer, machinery and labour)
• to creating cloth (dyes, chemicals etc)
• to the logo being added (factory costs, ink, royalties)
• transportation
• the retail store (rent, wages, utilities, advertising etc.)

The book does it again for an asthma inhaler, this very book and a cell phone so you can see how much it takes to create a product.

The book is large but skinny and includes just enough information to get a child thinking. It’s designed for ages 11+.

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