I LIKE HELPING PEOPLE

Courage, stamina, and passion are just some of the skills and qualities needed for a career that involves helping others.

This entry in the That’s a Job? series gives a sneak peek into a typical day in the life of a practitioner in each of 25 different careers, all with the same goal of helping people. The jobs are varied, with wide-ranging educational requirements, skills, and duties. They cross multiple disciplines, including health care, child development, and politics, with many hands-on jobs, including “refuse collector” (this is a British import), mechanic, and postal worker. Through brief snippets of first-person text, readers will discover what it takes to get the job, what its daily duties are, and why the job might be perfect for them. These accounts even share the best and worst parts of their job. The full-color illustrations are cheerful, using pops of color to highlight different moments of the workers’ day. The workers depicted are racially diverse, and illustrator Gaignet breaks gender assumptions for many jobs, illustrating a female-presenting mechanic, for instance, and a male-presenting nurse. The woman of color who is a development director is an amputee; unfortunately, when people in wheelchairs appear, they are always among the helped instead of helping. A concluding guide encourages readers to reflect on possible careers within the context of their own skills and interests.

Plenty of details to absorb while engaging readers to discover their own perfect careers.