An age-specific job manual featuring compelling stories and authoritative counsel.
Inspiration and advice for job-seeking members of Generation Z.
In the first two books of her My Job series, Skees, a baby boomer, traveled the world to interview people of varying ages who worked in a wide variety of careers. In this entry, she follows a similar path, focusing on “Gen Z”—people born between 1995 and 2015—but she wisely collaborates with Yusuf, herself a Gen Zer. Together, they share stories about other Gen Zers from 22 countries and 31 states, and the text is consistently punchy and engaging. A passionate preface by 19-year-old Yusuf, for instance, sets the tone and connects with the target audience (“We might be just scooping ice cream, bussing tables or babysitting. But we have aspirations, hopes, dreams and desires”), and the prologue by Skees cites generational statistics, offers an overview of career options, and speaks to Gen Z’s consumer power. The book includes Covid-19 pandemic-related resources as well as a section on racial justice, because, as Skees notes, “Gen Z reports that the BLM [Black Lives Matter] movement is one of the most impactful events on their worldview.” The foundational first chapter offers useful factoids about the title demographic as well as snippets of conversations with Gen Zers about how they view the workplace, adapt to changing technology, set career goals, and embrace entrepreneurialism. Chapters 2 and 3, in which the authors profile scores of Gen Zers, comprise the heart of the book; the latter chapter draws on numerous other sources to highlight Gen Z “dream-job attainers.” It features some remarkable stories, including those of Kiowa Kavovit, a 7-year-old who appeared on the TV show Shark Tank and obtained a $100,000 investment for her eco-friendly adhesive bandage, and Malala Yousafzai, the famed 15-year-old educational activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize and wrote a bestselling book. Chapter 4 is chock-full of job-search advice and resources tailored to Gen Zers, including helpful tips on internships, cover letters, resumes, interviewing, and more.
An age-specific job manual featuring compelling stories and authoritative counsel.Pub Date: March 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66-290426-4
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Skees Family Foundation
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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