There are lots of different grown-ups you might listen to when it comes to deciding how good any book or learning resource is. We decided to gather up a selection of the Clever Tykes books reviews and comments for you, here.

Clever Tykes reviews and comments

A very worthy mission encouraging kids to be more entrepreneurial!

Michael Acton Smith – CEO Mind Candy & Moshi Monsters

I was intrigued by your approach and I can’t think of a similar series of books that focuses on business skills for young children. The impact of what we read at an early age can stay with us for the rest of our lives.

Rt Hon. Michael Gove – Former minister for schools

I am a huge advocate of the entrepreneurial messages and characteristics that you are driving. I think it is a fantastic idea to instil the idea of entrepreneurship into children from a young age. This is a great way to open children up to the idea of not always following conventional paths and giving them the belief and confidence from an early age to pursue their own creative business ideas and ventures.

With unemployment being at the forefront of our society today, it is important that we do our bit as ambassadors of entrepreneurship to encourage the next generation to take the leap and this is a great way of doing so.

James Caan, CBE – Entrepreneur, former Dragon

I am absolutely delighted to support the work of Clever Tykes. Their series of books for children aged 6 upwards are fun, engaging, easy to read, simply illustrated, and most importantly use everyday situations and people to model ways in which children can develop the life skills which are so crucial to their future success and happiness.

The Clever Tykes series are such a wonderful way to introduce ‘enterprise’ to children from a young age – I can’t recommend them highly enough, and strongly urge parents to read along with their child as there is no doubt the stories will stimulate lots of questions and interest!

Lorraine Allman, Author and Founder of Enterprising Child

I found this book to be easy to read and full of lovely messages that children can take from it. It touched on taking responsibility, problem solving, admitting mistakes and also the work it takes to run a small business. Willow is entertaining but very human. A lovely story.

Naomi Richards, The Kids Coach, parent and life coach for children

The Clever Tykes series provides children with exactly the role models they need to grow up to be confident young adults with the skills to excel in all walks of life and will undoubtedly inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Duncan Cheatle, CEO Prelude Group, founder Rise To and co-founder StartUp Britain.

The concept of Clever Tykes books is excellent! Introducing entrepreneurial skills early on in life is empowering to young people and will help them develop essential life skills even if they don’t go on to become entrepreneurs. I would have loved to have had such enterprising resources available to me as a budding, young entrepreneur.

I love the look and feel of the book, the illustrations are wonderful.

Bev James, CEO of The Academy Group

Clearly a very worthy venture.

Adam Pescod, Elite Business Magazine

I like the audacity of trying to change British educational culture to be pro-business.

David MacLean, Packt Publishing

A charming book, wonderfully written and illustrated ! After reading about Willow and Stomp, you feel as if they are somehow connected to your own life stories, especially washing the reluctant dog! Thoroughly recommend this book. A pleasure to read to the children.

Kev, parent via amazon

I used to help on a reading scheme in a local school so I can really see the need for something different like this. I especially like the Walk-it Willow character (nothing to do with my own personal love of dogs you understand) especially for the more practical thinking children out there. Not everyone will make uni grade but that doesn’t mean they can’t aim high and run their own business.

Very inspiring for young minds..thinking ‘outside the box’.

Jennie H, parent

I have just come across the first (of hopefully many) books from Clever Tykes called ‘Walk-it Willow’ aimed at 7-11 year olds, well written, exciting storyline and good for reading. As a parent my 9 year old read this to his 7 year old sister, they were on tenterhooks and a few days later, unprompted the children had created an office in their bedroom and were running a cleaning business 10p per room.

These books will definitely show children from an early age the basics of running a business to get them ready for secondary school and the world of work. Well done Clever Tykes and let’s get your books read in the primary schools!

John More, parent and entrepreneurial accountant at HCB

Began to read Walk-it Willow last night with my niece. We hadn’t been reading long when she asked “what business can I do?”

Sarah Birch, aunty and director of Professional Approach

I genuinely mean it when I say that the kids absolutely loved them.

William is not a great reader but he was totally enthused by Code-it Cody. I think the fact that it was about computers helped but he loved the different personalities of the characters and ultimately ‘got’ the message about doing something that you love and making a career from it.

Jeremy Cornwall, parent and director or Bell Cornwall Recruitment

I thought they were great stories that clearly championed essential characteristics including innovation, hard work, goal-setting and teamwork (full review here).

Rachael B, parent and blogger

What teachers say

I read Walk-it Willow to 30 pupils in year 5 who were delighted by the hilarious opening scene of a dog attempting to escape from the obligatory bath-time.

I would highly recommend it to teachers looking for material for PSHE lessons-the topics and themes addressed in the book would make for constructive and weighty conversation for the whole class.

Sarah Graham-Watson, Year 5 teacher, London

The children in Year 5 at Deykin Avenue thoroughly enjoyed reading Walk-it Willow.

They were able to relate to the characters in the story and they have asked if they can write their own stories based around Willow. The children were so enthused that they wanted to read the story over and over again. They have also asked if they can take the book home. Reading is a priority for the school and Walk-it Willow has engaged all of the children, even those that are sometimes reluctant readers. The book generated a lot of discussion points and, in particular, gave the children opportunities to use the ideas in their own writing.

The children are very much looking forward to reading any other stories from Clever Tykes.

Janet Edwards – Headteacher & Pamela Gayle – Literacy Co-Ordinator, Birmingham

It’s a wonderful concept and the series has been delivered with teaching in mind. We have used the books for year 4 and 5 and the kids really get a lot out of the text. They provide a great resource for discussion points and exercises for PSHE and beyond.

Richard Parslow – Interim headteacher

We would like to thank you for the delivery of books we received last week, we are truly thrilled with them.

Sarah Hardcastle, Howden Infants School

We received the 3 books you sent us for the kids to read and want to send you feedback. The books are fabulous. A child in year 5 wrote the following: He loved the colour as he felt it was inviting. The story he felt was excellent, especially helping people to eat healthy. He thinks the next book should be green and should be called “Write it Woody”. He really feels all these books stand out from others.

Katie Presser, Rosh Pinah Primary School

Many thanks for your lovely books. Our children have written quizzes for them and they are now in our “Accelerated Reader” library.

Garry McIlwaine, Appertain Primary School

Some key sentiments from our blogger reviews:

“Personally I think these books are fantastic. Eva’s attitude has changed since reading the books. She has started putting a lot more effort into everything. Challenges no longer end in tears since Eva read the Clever Tykes books. Eva is stopping to think of ways she can solve problems rather than getting upset & feeling defeated. Definitely a sign the books have helped instil positive enterprising behaviour.”

“…as a parent I love the message and the encouragement of our young entrepreneurs.”

“The sturdy paperback books are really good quality with thick pages. The font is easy to read and the text has a nice amount of line spacing. There are plenty of black and white illustrations throughout the books — nearly on every spread — which makes the books even more entertaining and fun to read.”

“All three books are absolutely lovely! I hope to see them in more schools and home libraries soon.”

“Lara quickly whizzed through the first half of the book and was eager to take it to school to share with her friends.”

“These are storybooks with a good plot that children want to read. They just also happen to have strong characters who demonstrate some enviable enterprising skills to help them make the most of their opportunities.”

“If there is one thing I’d like Lara to take away from reading these stories, it is that opportunities are there for you to make the most of. I guess I’d also like her to see that these three characters have achieved three very different things.”

“Final verdict, the Clever Tykes books are amazing!”

“These books certainly struck a chord with my girls. I think the mix of simple text and illustrations alongside the writing works well. It gets the children interested and has them thinking and asking questions about topics they might not have necessarily thought about before.”

“I can see why they’ve been used in schools and it would be nice to see them used in many schools around the UK.”

“As my eldest likes computer games he made a point of reading Code-it Cody first, that really did grab his attention.”

“Each of the books reinforce the idea of being successful, who knows what reading one of these books might lead to for your children. It might inspire them to be more entrepreneurial and take the world by storm.”

“At the very least the books have engaging stories and meet literacy targets, so you really cannot go wrong investing in this set of storybooks.”

A review on Mumsnet