‘Poor Economics for Kids’: Nobel laureate Esther Duflo’s book for children imagines a fair world

Nobel laureate Esther Duflo and Cheyenne Oliver’s book for young readers, Poor Economics for Children, details the struggles of the poor of the Global South through vivid illustrations and easy-to-understand text.

Nilou lives in a village. That village can be in India or in Bangladesh, in Kenya, Vietnam or anywhere in the global South. Like any other village in the global south, life in Nilou’s village is difficult. Nilou herself finds the school curricula alienating; when her friend Afia is down with malaria, lack of money, health infrastructure, superstitions and corruption delay her treatment; her cousin has to go to the city in search of a job where, though he earns well, the sudden Covid-19 lockdown makes him anxious of the urban life. Moreover, like any other part of the world, this village is getting hotter by the year, villagers are facing water crises, floods and cyclones, there are occasional locust attacks, and mosquitoes are a menace.

An ordinary village

Then there is Magoo – a rich, powerful and patriarchal peasant cum politician with little interest in the well-being of the villagers; there is Sasha, the school teacher, eager to finish the syllabus regardless of the comprehension capabilities of her students; a geography graduate practising medicine, a corrupt...

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