Work: Interviews with People Doing Jobs They Love

by Shaina Feinberg, Julia Rothman (Illustrator)

Overview

What do a playwright, a vegan butcher, and an alpaca farmer all have in common? Two popular columnists take us behind the scenes in interviews with twenty-eight workers doing something they love.

With care and delight, New York Times columnists Shaina Feinberg and Julia Rothman take readers all over the world to explore the furthest reaches of passion and dedication in this collection of interviews. Meet a wildland firefighter, a surfer, a ferry captain, a designer of headscarves, an accessibility specialist, and many other real people doing the creative, fascinating, and often difficult jobs that make the world work. This ode to the wild and limitless range of job possibilities also includes thought-provoking questions designed to open conversations with young readers, as well as tips on how they might conduct an interview themselves. Featuring Julia Rothman’s captivating, detailed artwork drawn from real scenes and photos, Work is a work of inspiration and joy that honors people everywhere who love the work that they do.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536232660
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	12/03/2024
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	10.12(w) x 11.62(h) x 0.49(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Shaina Feinberg is a writer and filmmaker. Her films have been commissioned by the New York Times and screened around the world (including in the United States, Turkey, Australia, Canada, and Japan), and she is a recipient of the Reboot Studios Grant (2023). She is also the author of two books for adults, both illustrated by Julia Rothman, and her work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Topic, Audible, and This American Life. Together, she and Julia Rothman write and illustrate the column Scratch in the New York Times, where they interview real people about their jobs. Shaina Feinberg lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their two children.

Julia Rothman is the author and illustrator of many books for children and adults, including most recently The Real Dada Mother Goose: A Treasury of Complete Nonsense by Jon Scieszka, and Brick: Who Found Herself in Architecture by Joshua David Stein. She is the creator of the Anatomy series, as well as other books for adults. In 2017, she cofounded Women Who Draw, an open directory of female-identifying illustrators, artists, and cartoonists. Together, she and Shaina Feinberg write and illustrate the column Scratch in the New York Times, where they interview real people about their jobs. Julia Rothman lives in Brooklyn.

Editorial Reviews

Feinberg and Rothman offer introductions to people happily engaged in 28 unconventional careers. . . . Based on live or video interviews, each entry combines brief background notes and quotes distributed in easily digestible blocks around Rothman’s lively portraits and lavishly detailed views of storefronts, crowded display shelves, workspaces hung about with specialized gear, and outdoorsy gatherings of wild or domestic animals. . . . This fascinating survey will leave readers exhilarated by the options before them, inspired to think big, and eager for more.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

[An] impressively global and genuinely heartfelt survey.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Visually appealing. . . The text emphasizes personal satisfaction, and the colorful, energetic drawings convey enthusiasm, providing fresh material for career collections.
—Booklist

From start to finish, Shaina Feinberg and Julia Rothman’s book explores, celebrates and values work and the people who undertake it. Work is a helpful resource and entertaining read that’s sure to broaden horizons and inspire exploration.
—BookPage (starred review)

From the Publisher

★ 2024-08-17
Drawing inspiration from theirNew York Times business column, Feinberg and Rothman offer introductions to people happily engaged in 28 unconventional careers.

These concise profiles include a veterinarian in Uganda, who explains how to transport live giraffes; owners of an antique toy shop on City Island in the Bronx; and a pair of vegan butchers who live in Minneapolis but grew up in Guam, to mention just a few. Based on live or video interviews, each entry combines brief background notes and quotes distributed in easily digestible blocks around Rothman’s lively portraits and lavishly detailed views of storefronts, crowded display shelves, workspaces hung about with specialized gear, and outdoorsy gatherings of wild or domestic animals. Here, a tour guide in Australia’s Budj Bim National Park exhibits a special net that he and other Gunditjmara people use to trap eels. There, a research assistant in Chicago’s Field Museum notes that the ability to write very tiny numbers is a job requirement. Why? In order to label very tiny bones. The author and illustrator close out with entries on their own work and a list of helpful prompts for would-be interviewers. The workers here are as diverse racially and culturally as they are geographically; one (an architect and accessibility consultant) uses a motorized wheelchair. This fascinating survey will leave readers exhilarated by the options before them, inspired to think big, and eager for more—hopefully, Feinberg and Rothman have a follow-up in the works.

Tantalizing glimpses of working worlds beyond the office or computer screen. (glossary)(Informational picture book. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews