Sam and the Lucky Money

On Chinese New Years, children receive money. In this story, the child decides to give the money to someone more in need of it than himself. This book makes kids think about others and what they are going through.However, just giving money to someone on the street is not going to solve the real problems. But young kids are not able to unpack that right now - when they are older we can start discussing the reasons for homelessness and different options to address it including a look at real data to see what does and does not work. There are lots of underlying problems that lead to homelessness including but not limited to mental health, addiction, high cost of housing, PTSD, lack of manufacturing jobs, low skilled jobs do not earn a living wage, young single mothers, sudden death in the family, drop outs, physical or mental challenges, health problems, kicked out of foster care at 18, etc.

We loved this book as a way to show our young Chinese-American daughter how others also celebrate the Lunar New Year with red envelopes and to promote giving from the heart. We would read it to her as a bedtime story when she was in preschool and kindergarten.We bought more copies for birthday gifts for other children with birthdays close to the Lunar New Year to increase awareness and share our cultural tradition with them. We give the book with red envelopes with lucky money so they can learn more about other cultures and celebrate how kind-hearted children are loved and treasured.

I bought this on a whim as a Chinese New Year gift for my 5.5 year old son and I'm so glad that I did. He and I both enjoyed reading this book immensely, and it has such a wonderful moral to the story. The illustrations are so colorful and beautiful and inspired us to do several drawings and paintings of our own for a new year craft project. I will be purchasing several more to give away as gifts to family members' children for next lunar new year. I highly recommend this to any teacher or parent interested in expanding their multicultural library.

I love this story and it’s been a while since I had shared it. I’m so glad I was able to get my own copy of the book. My students loved the shared reading and learning about the Chinese New Year. They equally loved the theme about being grateful for a loving family.

A very cute story that's great for children to read themselves. The illustrations are also very nice, and it's a symbolic story about doing good; kind of like a Western Christmas story about the meaning of giving on such a high holy day.

Sam receives "lucky money" from his grandparents. They tell him he can spend it any way he likes. Sam discovers the amount of his gift is not enough to buy the treats he considers but is too much to waste foolishly. When he notices that a homeless man he knows has bare feet he uses the money to buy the man a pair of socks. It is a touching story. I bought it for my grandson whose name is Sam and included some lucky money for him to spend as he wished.

As a 3rd grade teacher, I love using this book to teach children about kindness and paying it forward ... great book!

As an elementary school teacher, I love this book and I always try to read this to my students around the Chinese New Year. It is a wonderful story of a boy who receives a special monetary gift for the holiday. As he shops around, he learns a valuable lesson and gives of himself in an unselfish way to help a stranger in need. A great read aloud with excellent social studies connections.

Bought this book with the intention of teaching my 4 years old about Chinese New Year. I was pleasantly surprise by the depth of the story. Not only does it introduce the custom of Chinese new year and how the Chinese celebrate their new year, it also tells a tale of being kind to others and not to be selfish. My son was deeply touch by the story and understood the tale without any difficulty.

Lovely story with detailed illustrations. We used this with Year 2 children to talk about financial capability within our PSHE unit.

Excellent book, purchased for school, KS1 PSHE/Citizenship, as recommended on the Cambridgeshire scheme of work. Delivery was super speedy as ever, children are really enjoying the story and it offers lots of discussion possibilities.

Bought it to use as part of PSHE programme with 6/7year olds. Totally engaged them and provoked a lot of discussion about the difference between needs and wants.

I bought this for my 3 year old daughter who wanted to learn about China. It's a bit too advanced for her but it's a lovely story. Would suit a 5-6 year old I reckon.