Rating: 
Summary: What do people do all day
Review: I was lucky enough to pick up the old version of this book at a junk shop along with a couple other old Richard Scarry books. This is now my 2 year olds favourite book, especially the section on road making and the wonderful Rock Cruncher (crusher). It is great as it presumes that kids might want to understand how things work, in a simple sort of way - many other books treat kids as though interesting stuff is left until when they are old enough to think! It is unfortunate that these books are not all being reprinted as I can see this one falling apart in a few years.
Rating: 
Summary: Great pictures needs a bit of updating
Review: I, like many other readers, remember and enjoyed this book as a child.
Now- with my own 3 year we are rediscovering the great pictures; the mechanics
of how things work and are built and what people do all day. This is where I think it needs some updating. As a historic record
for the 1950's, it might be accurate. But what takes me one
tick down in the rating in re-reading this to my son is the overt
sexist roles. There are precisely 3 careers allowed for women in this
book- homemaker, nurse and secretary. I've taken to changing some of
the gender of the workers to make it a bit more realistic- Don't get me wrong- the concept is great, the stories serve that
purpose of how things work- and my son loves this book- I just
get a bit tired trying not to perpetuate stereotpyes that didn't exist
when I was a child in the 1960's (at least in my family).
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books of any kind
Review: Like some other reviewers, I am disapointed the unabridged version is not available. But, even abridged, this is one of the funniest and most absorbing books in print. This book is full of delightful cutaways showing the internals of houses, streets, and factories. Like most Richard Scarry books, this one explores and explains a world which is fun, colorful, comprehensible, and full of well meaning people. Five stars is not enough.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books of any kind
Review: Like some other reviewers, I am disapointed the unabridged version is not available. But, even abridged, this is one of the funniest and most absorbing books in print. This book is full of delightful cutaways showing the internals of houses, streets, and factories. Like most Richard Scarry books, this one explores and explains a world which is fun, colorful, comprehensible, and full of well meaning people. Five stars is not enough.
Rating:
Summary: A book that endures lifetimes!
Review: My 3-year-old son and 40-something husband both adore this book! They spend hours and hours together reading and interacting with "What Do People Do All Day?" The amount of detail and creativity in this book is soaked up by my son -- I can almost see the cogs churning in his brain! This book will grow with him, too. He's so fascinated with the "how" and the "why" of the world, and this book answers his questions.
Rating:
Summary: careers in Busytown examined
Review: Set in Scarry's Busytown, this busy, colorful book is organized into eleven chapters that examine its citizens' jobs: Everyone is a worker; Building a new house; Mailing a letter; Firemen to the rescue; A visit to the hospital; The train trip; The story of seeds and how they grow; Wood and how we use it; Building a new road; A voyage on a ship; and, Where bread comes from. Effective use of color and cross-sections can be confusing for very young kids, but is informative and enjoyable for the curious, and the funny pictures appeal to all. Also, everything is labelled, which is very nice for beginning readers.
Rating:
Summary: Way cool book - shame it's abridged...
Review: This book was *so* cool when I was a kid - I spent hours reading and re-reading it, immersing myself in the pictures and enjoying the characters. Still cool today, but *abridged*? What were the publishers *thinking*? There wasn't much to it to begin with; abridging it is truly robbing those who'd really benefit from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunately it is abridged
Review: This really is an excellent book, but if your memories are of the complete 96 page edition, you may be dissapointed in this 64 page abridged version. Losing about 1/3 of the excellent stories is a bit sad. Huckle's plane trip for example is not present. What is left is really excellent, but what was cut was great too.
Rating:
Summary: The best kids book ever!
Review: When I was a child my brother and I loved this book so much that it literally fell apart. I have been searching since my daughter was born for an unabridged copy of the book. Some of the sections that I loved as a child have been removed. My child is now 7 and I'm still looking.. I specifically remember the in depth descriptions of different proceses and jobs that were very easy to understand. I wish an unabridged printing with library binding would be made available...it would be a sell out!
Rating:
Summary: Best Children's Book Ever
Review: Wish I could give this 10 stars. I discovered this book as a preschooler in 1968. My mom would take me to the local library every week. I checked it out from the library and I was hooked. I wanted to check it out at every visit, so my mom had the library order a copy for me. I remember even before I could read the words, I completely understood the story from the illustrations. I still have that original edition. It is tatered but still intact. I bought another copy this year for my preschool sons. They absolutely love it as well as the other Scarry book I had as a child, Busy Busy World. The newer book is the abridged edition. The abridged edition has 63 pages as compared to the ~95 pages in the original. They removed 4 stories from the original: busy (stay at home) mom, water treatment plants, electricity and how we get it, and Sgt. Murphy the Busytown policman. Why? Somebody at the publisher must have had a lobotomy. Anyway, we keep the original up in a closet to read only with adult supervision. The new one is on the shelf, readily accesible to the kids.
This book (even the abridged edition) is an absolute classic.
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