Pass Go and Collect $200 By Tanya Lee Stone, Illustrated by Steven Salerno


What happens when a game we’ve all played becomes a window into economic history, feminism, and intellectual property rights? Tanya Lee Stone’s Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How Monopoly Was Invented uncovers the surprising and often overlooked origins of Monopoly and the woman behind it.

Before Parker Brothers and Hasbro turned it into a best-selling board game, Monopoly began as The Landlord’s Game, invented by Lizzie Magie, a progressive thinker who wanted to highlight the dangers of monopolies and the growing divide between rich and poor. The story traces how her game was co-opted, rebranded, and sold, without credit to her, by Charles Darrow during the Great Depression.
This nonfiction picture book tells a multi-layered story of invention, economic justice, and erasure with vivid illustrations and accessible text.

Curriculum Connections

Math & Financial Literacy Connections

While Pass Go and Collect $200 centers on the social and historical story of Monopoly’s invention, the game itself offers rich opportunities to integrate math and finance instruction.

Math Skills

  • Counting & Probability: Use Monopoly-inspired game boards to explore probability in dice rolls, expected values, and statistics.

  • Decimals, Percents, and Budgeting: Adapt gameplay for students to calculate interest, rent, taxes, and income with real-world math applications.

  • Graphing & Data Analysis: Track and graph money earned/spent over rounds of play to analyze patterns and decision-making.

Financial Literacy

  • Budgeting & Saving: Discuss strategies used in Monopoly (saving cash, purchasing property, taking risks) and relate them to real-life budgeting decisions.

  • Debt & Loans: Explore the implications of borrowing money, mortgage concepts, and the risks of debt—both in the game and in real life.

  • Wealth Gaps: Encourage reflection on how initial advantages (starting money, luck, location) affect long-term financial success in gameplay—and in real life.

Social Studies

  • The Progressive Era & Great Depression: Use the story to introduce themes of capitalism, economic inequality, and social reform.

  • History of Labor and Monopolies: Connect to units on industrialization, antitrust laws, and the impact of wealth accumulation.

  • Intellectual Property & Women’s History: Discuss Lizzie Magie’s overlooked role in the game’s invention and how history often overlooks women’s contributions.

ELA

  • Informational Texts & Author’s Purpose: Examine how Tanya Lee Stone frames the story and uses nonfiction storytelling to revise a commonly known narrative.

  • Critical Literacy: Explore whose voices are heard and whose are silenced. Students can research other inventions or cultural phenomena where women or marginalized individuals were erased.

SEL & Diversity Lens

  • Gender & Recognition: Lizzie Magie’s story opens powerful conversations about women’s intellectual labor and the barriers they face in being recognized and compensated.

  • Justice & Fairness: Engage students in reflecting on how credit, ownership, and voice are distributed in society. How do we ensure fairness—in games and in real life?

Discussion Questions

  1. Why did Lizzie Magie invent The Landlord’s Game, and what message was she trying to send?

  2. How did the meaning of the game change when Charles Darrow rebranded it as Monopoly?

  3. What other examples can you think of where women’s contributions have been erased or minimized?

  4. Can a board game be a form of protest or education?


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