Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day? (1968)

I grew up on Richard Scarry and it was always a favorite of mine! Shows children a glimpse inside the adult world and the jobs adults hold. It teachers about work and money and cooperation. Would be great if class hosted a profession day where parents came in to discussion their job or children draw/write about their parents jobs and their own dream job! ( )

I did not learn too much of it anymore, because I was 'too old' when I first read it. But I loved to show my son around and look at the illustrations time and again, discovering something new every time. ( )

This book is wonderful for units on community helpers. It takes children through the day to day meanderings of different careers. Children will be interested to see what different jobs entail, and will be able to relate the material to their own parents jobs. The reading level for this book is 3.4. For more about this author, parents and teachers should visit www.amazon.com/Richard-Scarrys-What.../0394818237.

I'm surprised by how vividly I remember some of these illustrations from when I was little. I must have poured over them for hours. I especially remember the cross-section of the boat for some reason.

It is dated - the women work in the home while the men work outside, etc. But still very enjoyable. I joked to my friend that it was almost a communist manifesto - with the constant repetition of the word "worker," and the big heading, "EVERYONE IS A WORKER." Lolz.

I know this is the abridged version, but I can't remember what has been taken out. I wonder why they did that? ( )

Both of the adults in this household remember this book from when they are children, and now it is being passed onto a new generation.

Scarry's books are full of busy animals doing busy things, with all the things on the page labelled, which is great fun for starter readers. This book does a good job of explaining things like electricity plants and papermills, and how fire trucks use the water out of hydrants.

It shows it's age in a few places - "Mother's work is never done" is probably still true - but there are women in Scarry's animal workforce as well as men (and many characters you can't tell anyway) and the engineer of the household assures me that building roads hasn't changed all that much from how Scarry describes it, so our child is not going to be laughed out of the playground for getting that wrong. ( )