As befits a list of this kind, we will start with the least wealthy and work our way upwards!

Jo-Jo

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You may not have heard of JoJo before.  The name may even make you question why exactly female emancipation has come so far when women consistently give themselves pet names more akin to what you might call a hamster rather than a full grown woman.  JoJo, FloJo, J-Lo – oh no!  It’s almost enough to… enough!

At eighteen years of age, young JoJo is only worth a paltry million dollars or so which means she either hasn’t hit her peak earning potential or words need to be had with her Manager.  Either way, she started her career as a singer and has released two albums so far.  With these only selling five million copies worldwide, JoJo’s brand is entering the world of acting and movies.  Under her real name of Joanna Noelle Levesque she has so far been in two films.  It’s good to see a young singer make the bold and unusual step in to acting.

Tyler James Williams

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Just ahead of JoJo is the young African-American actor Tyler James Williams is best known for his role in the Sitcom “Everyone Hates Chris” which everyone loves.  So, it is more than a little surprising that he is not worth more than 1.2 million dollars. 

Before EHC he did a brief stint on the show “Little Bill” which was voice only but really gained the attention of audiences world-wide when he played Tyler on Sesame Street for five years.  When he got to old to be of much interest to the Sesame demographic he may have faded in to obscurity but the role of Chris came up and the rest, as they say, is history.  The Civil Rights movement the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) gave him an award for ‘Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series’ in 2006 which he was generally believed to thoroughly deserve.  This prize was given in 2006 when he was just fourteen years old.  Many see Williams as the natural successor to a certain Hollywood Superstar with the last name of Smith.

Abigail Breslin

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The first time the world clapped eyes on Abigail Breslin it was when she played Bo Hess in the 2002 M. Night Shyamalan movie ‘Signs’.  Although this was her breakthrough role, she is best remembered for her Academy Award Nominated role in the movie ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’  She is the fourth youngest person ever to have been nominated.  She didn’t get the award but she had more fun co-presenting the ceremony and, after all, she has many more years and the acting promise to be nominated again in the future.

She is currently believed to be worth around three million dollars which doesn’t seem a great deal considering her appearance in these two major movies, plus supporting roles in several others.  She will be seen in 2009 in the adaptation of the controversial novel ‘My Sister’s Keeper’.  In it she will play a child born through in-vitro fertilization as an identical genetic match for he older sister who suffers from leukemia.  Breslin’s character, Anna Fitzgerald, sues her parents for ‘medical emancipation’.  One to watch out for in 2009!

Vanessa Anne Hudgens

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High School Musical represents the Brave New World of the teen sing-along movie, a Grease for the new millennia but completely sanitized and without the sanity (let alone the humanity) of many of its predecessors. If you expect or want to see any sexual chemistry between the leads you may well be better downloading a Garland-Rooney film from the nineteen forties.  Although for some, the ‘High School’ series represents a guilty pleasure (much akin to the ‘it’s so bad it’s good’ school of cinema) most people over the age of eleven will seriously not admit to being a fan.  

That being said, it has made its young female star, the walking mouthful-of-syllables that is Vanessa Anne Hudgens a seriously rich young lady.  Worth around three million notes, this young lady is taking her own acting very seriously.  So seriously in fact that she has recently become the spokesperson for Neutrogena.  This skin treatment retains at its cheapest at around two dollars.  One can imagine the thrifty Ms Hudgens – at the appearance of a humungous zit – dashing down to the local store to grab a few bottles.  It’s so nice when famous kids stay down to earth.

Hayden Panettiere

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Ms Hayden Panettiere may have a name that sounds like a small Italian loaf but she has endeared herself to millions of science fiction fans as the Cheerleader who cannot be killed in the hit TV series ‘Heroes’.  At seventeen years of age, the role of Claire ‘Kill Me’ Bennett may have brought her to worldwide attention but she is no stranger to the screen, big or small, and has been acting since the age of five.

She contributed to the success of the Disney movie “Remember the Titans” in which she co-starred opposite Denzel Washington in 2000.  It was the revenue this movie earned that encouraged Disney to make a whole stack of sports related features.  So, you (at least partly) could blame Ms Panettiere for the slew of sub-standard sports-related celluloid that hit the theaters shortly after!  With about three and a half million in the bank she won’t get upset if you do.  Perhaps though, she was a little miffed when Ms Hudgens usurped, er, took over her role as the global face of Neutrogena this year. 

Dakota Fanning

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If you thought Hayden had a strange name at least she doesn’t have one that sounds like what a turn of the century lady of the night might do after a hard evening’s work.  Now demanding two million per movie, Dakota  Fanning is rumored to now be worth over four million dollars.  You will have seen her opposite Tom Cruise in ‘War of the Worlds’ but is now doing the painful ‘transition’ parts between child and adult actor. 

She made an early appearance (as did Ms Panettiere) in the TV ‘lawyer-as-complete-f**kwit’ series Ally McBeal but her first real appearance was not quite a starry as you might think.  In fact her first known appearance on film was opposite Ray Charles (not bad) in a TV commercial (uh-oh) for the state lottery (really, really bad).  Well, you have to start somewhere and this initial ‘I’ll do anything’ moment hasn’t affected her subsequent career adversely.  If anything, she is one of the teens in this list who is projected to do extremely well in the future.

Lily Cole

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Now we are starting to get on to the big hitters.  England has long been recognized as one of the more acquisitive nations on the planet and this is certainly the case when it comes to children and money.  In a fine and noble tradition going way back to Elizabeth Taylor and beyond, here come the British!  Lily Cole got off to a very unhappy start in life, being born in the coastal town of Torquay (which used to ply its tourist trade as the British Riviera because they planted a few palm trees around the place).

Being a plucky Brit she didn’t let this stop her.  Although it is tempting here to mention her dizzying array of ginger locks and pear-shaped features that makes Stewie out of ‘Family Guy’ look averagely proportioned in the facial department, Ms Cole’s features are best left to the individual to judge.  Most certainly, the fashion world loves both hair and face and she is worth around twelve million dollars.  Plus, when she makes films, she may have chosen Saint Trinian’s (a dud) to start with but at least it starred Colin Firth and Rupert Everett.  Furthermore, Neutrogena? Pah!  Ms Cole can claim Anna Sui, Chanel and Lacroix (sweety) as part of her portfolio of advertisements.  Not bad for nineteen!

Emma Watson

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Little Miss Down To Earth is how Emma Watson is portrayed by the media and for once they may have got something right.  Worth around twenty million dollars the Harry Potter star (she plays Hermione Granger – as if you need reminding!) has all of her money tied up in trusts until she reaches the ‘responsible’ age of twenty one.  In fact, it is said that she still receives pocket money.  Unlikely as it is, Ms Watson is rarely in the spotlight and does to all intents and purposes seem a very straightforward (even perhaps straight laced) young lady.

Unlike many of the other girls on this list, French born Ms Watson had never had any professional acting experience before she landed the role of her young life in 1999.  Many critics said that she acted her two fellow co-stars off the screen and it has been of consistent ire to many Potter fans that the role of Hermione has been consistently underwritten in the films.  A combination of acting prowess and brains, Ms Watson remained at the same independent girl’s schools throughout the series of films and achieved straight A grades in twelve subjects in her leaving school examinations.

Rupert Grint

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Possibly the ‘one most likely to succeed’ in the long run out of the three young starts of the Harry Potter series, not many would have placed that bet when Rupert Grint was first cast as Ron Weasley back in 2000.  Before the HP movies he had only ever been in school productions and one or two appearances with a local theater group.  He was less than sure-footed in the first movie but has slowly strengthened his performances ever since.

With around twenty two million dollars to his name one may well do a L’Oreal and ask if he was worth it.  He has several new movies coming out in the near future which will allow audiences to be the judge.  Not content with Daniel Radcliffe doing the ‘Full Monty’ on stage, his new feature Cherrybomb features Grint nudity (be warned!).  He also is just about to start filming ‘Wild Target’ – a thriller with Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham-Carter.  Just in case his movie career goes pear-shaped, Grint has bought himself an ice cream van.  When the acting dries up he plans to drive the van around his home town of Watton-At-Stone and sell a variety of ices to the local public.  How very British!

Daniel Radcliffe

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Young Master Daniel Radcliffe started his acting career properly in a BBC version of the Charles Dickens classic ‘David Copperfield’ where he portrayed a convincing if somewhat winsome version of the young hero.  This led to him being spotted by JK Rowling and hence the role of Harry Potter in the eponymous series of movies based on the badly written but hugely popular tales of youthful wizardry.

Believed to be worth around thirty million dollars, Radcliffe eases in here at number one with little effort.  Growing up has not been so easy, however.  He made many foolish remarks to the media during his mid-teens about his discovery of the world of sex and groupies that Ricky Gervais lampooned him in his TV series ‘Extras’.  Radcliffe was man enough to take part in that but his appearance in the stage play “Equus” last year raised even more eye-brows.  He chose, for his first adult role, to bare all on the stage of London’s West End.  Although an essential part of the play, this did not harm to the audience numbers.  He had as many teenage girls and gay men in attendance to create a direct demographic correlation between serious theatre and a Kylie Minogue concert.

So, there you have it – the ten richest teenagers in the world!