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Labor Day, Sept. 2 this year, represents the end of summer more than the workers it's named for. Some places have Labor Day celebrations, but mostly it’s beach trips, barbecue or end-of-season sales. We don’t have the literally explosive labor movement that existed when the federal holiday began 130 years ago, but we share the tectonic technological shifts, shrinking paychecks and growing worker tensions. The DCPL collection includes classics honoring America’s workers, like Nomadland by Jessica Bruder and Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. Working by Studs Terkel has a young-adult graphic adaptation. Below are five great books for children.
Kids at Work by Russel Freedman
In his crusade for a law to end child labor, Lewis Hine took more than 7,000 photographs. Russel Freedman’s heartbreaking book, Kids at Work, resurrects these ghostly little faces from more than 100 years ago. This biography for and about children shows dozens of Hine’s photographs and describes the hardships he discovered as he traveled the country. It also describes how Hine eluded uncooperative owners and managers by posing as a salesman or inspector or waiting outside the factory gates for children to appear. The Traveling Camera and Breaker Boys are two other books about Hine in our children’s collection.
What Do You Do If You Work at the Zoo? By Steve Jenkins and Robin Page
I don’t know if President Grover Cleveland had zoo workers in mind when he signed Labor Day into law in 1894. But you’ll find lots of fascinating behind-the-scenes labor in What Do You Do If You Work at the Zoo? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. How do you weigh a 350-pound python? How do you keep an aardvark’s ears from getting sunburned? How do you feed a king vulture chick? Find these answers and so much more in this book’s captivating pages. Among the world’s top zoos listed at the end is Washington’s very own, the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.
Steady Hands by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
Free verse by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer and mixed media illustrations by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy weave a sunup-to-sundown spell about the many ways we put our Steady Hands to work. A cafeteria cook, a park ranger, a janitor, an exterminator, a babysitter, a surgeon and a baker are among the many workers on parade in these pages. The intricate language straddles the adult world, too; prepare for words like “soothsayer” and “claustrophobic” and mentions of Degas and Pissarro. The steady hands even continue their work past bedtime when “the moon unlocks the door for the night shift.”
Work: An Occupational ABC by Kellen Hatakana
A DCPL staff workshop by the Eric Carle Museum presented the Whole Book Approach, which stresses reading with children rather than reading to them. Kellen Hatakana’s whimsical Work: An Occupational ABC is a great place to start. From Aviator to Zookeeper, explore both these pages and a child’s mind by asking what is going on in each picture, what they see that makes them say that, and what more they can find. Pages have just a word or two with giant letters cleverly embedded in the action. And who knows--your little reader might grow up to be a xenologist!
Dogs at Work by Margaret Cardillo
People aren’t the only workers. As the clever book Dogs at Work reminds us, beloved canines perform “very real jobs.” Author Margaret Cardillo flips the script--two children wait anxiously in the window as their dogs head to work. When they reunite at the end of the day, tails wag all around. “I knew you would come back,” says a little girl in a shaggy embrace. The book ends with the real dogs that inspired the stories. Children can learn more with the “furrier further reading” list; don’t miss the 60 Minutes segment on “The Smartest Dog in the World.”
About the Author
Barbara Cornell is a Library Associate at the William O. Lockridge Bellevue Neighborhood Library. She grew up in Michigan, where the public library across the street from her house was a first taste of independence. Since then, she has lived in five countries and always finds a home in books. She has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Washington, DC.
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