Craig Robinson had spent more than 20 years managing investments when he sat down one evening to read his daughters a bedtime story and noticed something that should not have surprised him — but did.
Nothing existed.
Not a single children’s book, in a market overflowing with talking animals and fairytale kingdoms, that explained what a stock was, why markets moved, or what any of it had to do with the world his daughters were growing up into. The gap was not subtle once he saw it — and in a country where fewer than half of US states require any personal finance education before graduation, it was not an accident either. Animals, trucks, princesses — yes. Money, investing, financial confidence — no. Robinson decided that if the book did not exist, he would write it. Then he went further and founded Nolyne Publishing to make sure more would follow.
Bull & Bear Race at the Big Board is the second title in that series.
Aimed at children between three and seven years old, the book follows two characters — Bull and Bear — through a full day at the stock exchange, from opening bell to closing bell, racing to see whether prices will rise or fall. Bull cheers when stocks go up. Bear celebrates when they go down. The mechanics are simple enough for a pre-schooler to follow, yet the concepts underneath are real: stocks, bonds, investments, and the fundamental rhythm of how markets behave. Robinson wrapped those ideas in rhyming verse because rhyme does what explanation cannot — it makes things stick.
He was direct about the philosophy behind it.
“The stock market doesn’t have to be scary or confusing,” Robinson said. “By turning it into a race between Bull and Bear, kids can see how it works in a way that’s entertaining and age-appropriate. These are the building blocks for financial confidence later in life.”
The book does not ask children to understand volatility or compound interest. It asks them to notice that markets move — up and down, like a race with no guaranteed winner — and that understanding that movement is something they can begin doing now, at three years old, in pyjamas, before the light goes out.
That instinct reflects a genuine and stubborn problem. Only 23 US states currently require high school students to complete a personal finance course before graduation, according to the Council for Economic Education. The majority of young Americans reach adulthood without any formal grounding in money management. Children’s books alone will not fix that. But parents who want to start the conversation earlier — before school either does or does not cover it — have had almost nothing to reach for.
Until recently.
Illustrated by Carolina Buzio, Bull & Bear Race at the Big Board combines bright visuals and humour with Robinson’s rhyming text — a combination that has made it a choice for parents, teachers and community leaders looking to introduce financial concepts without making the subject feel like homework. Buzio’s illustrations carry significant weight in a picture book aimed at pre-readers; the visual grammar of Bull and Bear — one charging upward, one ambling down — gives children a physical intuition for market movement before they can spell either word.
Yet the book’s significance extends beyond any individual reading session. Robinson built Nolyne Publishing around a specific mission: financial literacy delivered through stories children actually want to hear again. The Bull & Bear series is built to grow with its readers, introducing progressively more complex ideas across multiple titles. A child who meets Bull and Bear at age four is being prepared, gradually and without pressure, for conversations about money that most families find awkward to begin at any age.
Still, the work of shifting financial literacy outcomes in the United States belongs to no single book, author or publisher. What Robinson has done is create an entry point — something a parent can put on a shelf next to the dinosaur books and the Seuss collection that belongs there by virtue of being genuinely good at what it does rather than merely educational.
Bull & Bear Race at the Big Board is available now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and www.Nolyne.com.
