The Furry News: How To Make a Newspaper  by Loreen Leedy
Holiday House
32 pages
ISBN 0-8234-0793-4

Summary: Big Bear, Rabbit, and other animals work hard to produce a newspaper for their own neighborhood. They divide up the labor to write, edit, and print a variety of stories.

Concept: Productivity

Definition: Labor productivity measures how many goods or services are produced
per worker. Greater productivity leads to higher standards of living.

Comprehension Questions:

Identify the economic want of this neighborhood in the beginning of the story.
(a newspaper of their own)

Describe how Big Bear divided the labor to produce the newspaper. (Big Bear assigned himself the job of publisher and gave each animal a job.)

Describe the responsibility of each job (human resource).

news editors
 decide which news stories to put in the newspaper, hand out assignments to the news reporters, edit articles, write exciting headlines, write editorials
news reporters
 make phone calls, ask questions, take photographs, write articles
features editors
 same as news editors but focus on anything in the paper other than news or advertising
feature articles reporters
 write articles about movies, television, books, etc.
production department workers
 do paste-up, printing
circulation department workers
 sell and deliver newspapers
advertising department workers
 sell advertisements

What capital resources are needed to perform each job? (answers may vary: pens, pencils, telephone, camera, computer, typewriter, printer)

Explain the advantages of dividing the labor. (It helped to increase the productivity
of the newspaper.)

How did the animals fund the production of the newspaper? (Money was earned by selling space for advertisements in the newspaper and by selling the papers.)

Explain how the animals produced both a good and a service for the neighborhood.
(good - the newspaper was something made that the community wanted; service - the work done by the newspaper workers to provide a paper for their own community)

Other Concepts: Human Resources, Capital Resources, Specialization, Division of Labor, Interdependence



(From KidsEcon Posters©: www.kidseconposters.com)