With its wide range of jobs and commendable gender balance, this will have a place in classrooms despite the rather odd...
The unnamed and unseen narrator in this German import introduces readers to the jobs of 30 family members and friends.
Three to six sentences on the bottom sixth of each page introduce each person and summarize what their job entails. The careers range widely, from a mechanical engineer, astronaut, and architect (all women!) to a gardener, brewer, and tattoo artist. But the author goes overboard with adjectives: Auntie Tokiko is a farmer. “She gets up very early…to feed her charming cows, clucking chickens, gregarious goats, and gigantic pigs.” And some descriptions are unclear: “When a person might have done something wrong, [lawyer uncle Ben] looks at every little detail and helps them (and the judge) decide what to do.” Ryski’s illustrations have a stylized, posterlike aesthetic. The retro palette is limited to black, white, pink, brown, mustard yellow, orange, green, and a dusky blue. Faces are reminiscent of Lego minifigure faces: expressions and even facial features are mostly the same throughout, whether male or female, with hairstyles and facial hair sometimes differentiating people. The narrator’s sister and grandmother are on facing pages, and aside from one having wavy hair and one having straight, they might be twins; there is no visible age difference, and their faces are identical. Skin tones are either brown or pink.
With its wide range of jobs and commendable gender balance, this will have a place in classrooms despite the rather odd language. (Informational picture book. 3-9)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-3-89955-799-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Gestalten
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book....
From funeral clown to cheese sculptor, a tally of atypical trades.
This free-wheeling survey, framed as a visit to “The Great Hall of Jobs,” is designed to shake readers loose from simplistic notions of the world of work. Labarre opens with a generic sculpture gallery of, as she puts it, “The Classics”—doctor, dancer, farmer, athlete, chef, and the like—but quickly moves on, arranging busy cartoon figures by the dozen in kaleidoscopic arrays, with pithy captions describing each occupation. As changes of pace she also tucks in occasional challenges to match select workers (Las Vegas wedding minister, “ethical” hacker, motion-capture actor) with their distinctive tools or outfits. The actual chances of becoming, say, the queen’s warden of the swans or a professional mattress jumper, not to mention the nitty-gritty of physical or academic qualifications, income levels, and career paths, are left largely unspecified…but along with noting that new jobs are being invented all the time (as, in the illustration, museum workers wheel in a “vlogger” statue), the author closes with the perennial insight that it’s essential to love what you do and the millennial one that there’s nothing wrong with repeatedly switching horses midstream. The many adult figures and the gaggle of children (one in a wheelchair) visiting the “Hall” are diverse of feature, sex, and skin color.
Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1219-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
The poetry may be hit and miss, but the concept is terrific and the illustrations similarly sublime.
A compendium of poems designed to teach the concept of mixing...and, of course, to entertain.
Each of the 13 verses is illustrated with a two-page spread, featuring mostly children doing the mixing. "Glue" shows them combining flour and water to make glue for a classroom art project—"Then mix them, squish them, squoosh them, / 'til you get a sticky goo." In "Bubbles," a girl blocks her brother, who wants to give the dog a bath in the washing machine, advising instead that they "Rub and scrub with soapy water, watch the bubbles fly." "Concrete" shows a workman putting sand, gravel, water and cement into the big mixer, as well as a trio of children putting their prints in the new sidewalk (one gets his shoes stuck): "Concrete starts all soft and slushy, / then gets hard—that's clever." Other topics include a makeshift Martian costume for Halloween, cinnamon toast, a ragtag soccer team, salad dressing, mud, music and bedtime; that is, the routine of checking under the bed, a bedtime story, hug and kiss, etc. "Just one more glass of water, / and one more time to pee, / and one more check beneath the bed / for monsters—wait for me." A brief, helpful afterword suggests teaching possibilities provided by the text.
The poetry may be hit and miss, but the concept is terrific and the illustrations similarly sublime. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55451-279-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
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