What Do People Do All Day?
INSIDE FRONT COVER is labeled with numeral 2 on the lower left corner. Top of page text reads, "Welcome to Busytown. We all live in Busytown and we are all workers. We work hard so that there will be enough food and house and clothing for our families.". Following the above text, are drawings of characters in work apparel with their names beneath each are organized by Job Type and/or Animal Family, and appear in the following order. Words shown below in parenthesis are my notations. Mortimer (mouse) Mayor Fox (holding a sign that reads, "Welcome to Busytown") Farmer Alfalfa (goat) Grocer Cat (calico male cat [identified by wearing pants]) Mother (calico female cat [identified by wearing a dress]) Huckle (calico cat) Captain Salty (calico cat) Lookout Louie (mouse) King Coal (beaver, identified by 2 large front teeth) Captain Reddy, the pilot (not sure what animal?) Sarah (cat) Able Baker Charlie (mouse) Chief Road Engineer (brown bear) Mother (brown bear) Betsy (girl brown bear) Grandma (brown bear) Bugdozer (small green/white bug sitting on a small bulldozer machine) FACE PAGE is labeled with numeral 3 on the lower right covern. Top of page text reads, "Children are workers, too. Many children are helper workers. Are you a helper?". The following characters are on this page. Words in parenthesis are my notations.
Stats for nerds
12recommend
16mentions
13people
2015–2026years
88% recommend13% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- What I remember reading to my kids aged 5-10
The Hobbit
The Fellowship of the Ring (more for me but they liked to snuggle up and fall asleep to it)
Harry Potter 1-5 (the hardback versions with lots of pictures)
Eric the Viking - Terry Jones - a personal fav of mine
Various compendiums of Greek and Norse Myths
Dr Seuss books
What do people do all day - Richard Scarry
My son started reading the Beastquest books very early by himself and was happy to read independently from there. After that at around 8 he started reading diary of a wimpy kid and the 13 storey treehouse type books.
- I have a 5yo daughter, and I appreciate that *What Do People Do All Day?* have female characters in homemaker roles, which is still common in most of the world. Many of her other books have female protagonists doing everything else.
Part of an education should be learning how other people live, whether it's in the past or in another part of the world. And of course, there's nothing wrong with being a homemaker today.
- > I have a 5yo daughter, and I appreciate that What Do People Do All Day? have female characters in homemaker roles, which is still common in most of the world. Many of her other books have female protagonists doing everything else.
Is that a new copy or an old one?
The newer editions of Best Word Book Ever were updated to be less stereotypical (I think there's a gallery somewhere that shows the changes). Unfortunately the updated art is noticeably inferior (even to my untrained eye), and in some places kinda dumb (on one page I think they decided they needed more girls, so they phoned it in and slapped a big "LISA" on the shirt of some androgynous animal). Also they dropped A LOT of content, so the newer editions are something like half as long.
- Cars and Trucks and Things That Go is a child favorite and What Do People Do All Day has great depictions of saw mills, flour mills, power plants, and more, but I like Richard Scarry’s I Am a Bunny the most: The pages are filled edge-to-edge with his vibrant illustrations (no whitespace as in his other books) and the story by Ole Risom describes the timeless passing of the seasons.
- Bought some of these when my kids were between 3-5 yo. Several years ago they re-published a series of them, including the cars and trucks, what do people do all day, the funny stories, and a few others (I think 6 books in total). I got the entire series at B&N, they were easily the favorite books of my youngest who was about 4 or 5 at the time. I had no idea they were so old!
- What are the changes? I still have my childhood copy of What Do People Do All Day and my daughter loves it, might get her some of the other Busytown books.
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