Beverly Cleary's "Ramona," who was first introduced to readers in the 1950s, watches her father lose his job, find another one as a checkout clerk at a supermarket and decide to go back to school in order to eventually land a better job to support his family. It's a lesson in recession economics that still resonates today.
The easy-to-grasp message – that families can grapple with financial setbacks and find a way to overcome them – gives parents a way to help kids understand financial struggles. The books, which otherwise revolve around Ramona's school days and tiffs with her sister, offer parents a starting point to talk about their own challenges or make it easier to understand what friends might be experiencing.
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