Daisy and the Trouble with Piggy Banks

Kes Gray's Daisy and the Trouble with Piggy Banks is a very funny story for 5 year olds about a girl who needs ninety-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence and has an empty piggy bank.

What happens

Gabby, Daisy's best friend, comes round on a brand-new micro-scooter. It flashes like a Christmas tree. It makes a noise like an alien crossed with a chipmunk crossed with a gargling frog. And it squirts water, which Daisy finds out when she gets soaked right down her front.

It's IMMENSE (that's everyone's new word at school). Daisy absolutely has to have one. Mum says they don't have that kind of money, so if Daisy wants one she'll have to save up.

So Daisy tries doing chores for pocket money. She hoovers an orange out of the fruit bowl. She squeezes a whole bottle of washing-up liquid into the sink. She scrubs the car with a metal scouring pad. You can probably guess how Mum feels about the car.

Then Gabby brings round her own piggy bank and offers her every penny. It comes to two pounds seventy-six, plus a coin with an antelope on it that they're convinced could be worth two thousand pounds.

Daisy tells the whole story herself, and it's packed with her "the trouble with" thoughts. The trouble with fruit bowls. The trouble with foreign coins (they don't speak the same language). Her logic is so certain and so wrong that you can't help laughing out loud.

There are plenty of don't-try-this-at-home moments. Daisy borrows the big kitchen scissors she's not allowed to use and cuts open the underneath of the sofa looking for lost coins. Your reader will know she's in trouble long before she does!

There's a kind side to it too. Mum gives her 50p for trying, and tells her there were lots of things her own parents couldn't afford when she was little. And what about Gabby handing over her whole piggy bank? That's a proper best friend.

It's a nice, gentle way into talking about wanting things and saving up for them.

What to read next

Want more Daisy? Daisy and the Trouble with Life has her grounded for something extreeeeemely naughty, stuck in the lounge with no one to play with and lots of opinions about what grounded should actually mean.