Review by Booklist Review
This oversize picture book suggests a variety of slightly off-the-beaten-path occupations for young readers. Are you a patient person? Then you might try a career as a tortoise walker. Do you have a strong stomach? Body farming might be in your future. Two-page spreads address traditional career considerations, and then suggest three or four related possibilities. Are you an emotional person? Perhaps you could find work as a professional apologizer, mourner, or studio-audience laugher. Are you into animals? Try being an elephant dresser, chicken sexer, or sloth nanny. Every entry is an actual occupation, and all are accompanied by very basic job descriptions. Brief blurbs, outsize fonts, and top-to-bottom digital illustrations fill the pages, giving readers plenty to look at. There are a couple quizzes on work sites and uniforms, and all sorts of trivia tidbits scattered throughout the book. This might not seem like a first choice for the career section, but the important message about following your passion--breath odor evaluator? Imax screen cleaner?--comes through loud and clear.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1--4--This fascinating exploration of different ways people make a living features more than 60 incredible occupations. Each job description relays a few fun facts and includes a colorful image. From the submarine chef wielding his spatula through a porthole to a sloth nanny pushing a pram full of fuzzy orphans, the jobs span the globe and even outer space. Parts of the book feel like a museum experience, complete with statues and artifacts. The illustrations are diverse and whimsical. Numerous interactive elements, such as spotting hidden objects (like the golf balls sought by the official golf ball diver) and matching games to sort out whose uniform belongs to whom (the sparkly jumpsuit must go to the Elvis impersonator), add extra fun. While the book doesn't dive into salary or benefits, it does provide the valuable takeaway that there are myriad paths to fulfillment. From the adventurous (smoke jumper), creative (cheese sculptor), and even the slightly spooky (body farmer), there is a perfect job out there for everyone. VERDICT This book is a playful reminder that everyone is unique, not only in their appearance and background, but also in the way they contribute to the world and workforce.--Alyssa Annico, Youngstown State University, OH
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
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 likebut 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 unspecifiedbut 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) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
