Made You Look

Made You Look: How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know by Shari Graydon, 2003, 115 pages
(6th grade up)

This is an excellent book for helping kids realize the aims and influence of advertising. M. read it first and highly recommended it. It's filled with eye-openers like this one:

"Marvin Bigwig goes to advertisers and says, 'Kids love this show. They love it so much that I can promise to get you the attention of millions and millions of them every day.' . . . Marvin Bigwig has actually 'sold' you and your attention to the advertisers."

The final chapter is about the strategies kids (and all of us) can use to influence advertisers if we're not pleased with what they're doing.