What Do People Do All Day?
by Richard Scarry · first published 1968
92% recommend8% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Richard Scarry's richly detailed illustrations and cutaways of everyday work, from sawmills and flour mills to power plants and underground pipes, spark curiosity in young children who ask endless why questions.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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) Gr
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…children than when The Cat in Hat was first published. Interest and attention at the task of reading something, anything is more important than fantastic content. I don't have children but if I did I'd read What Do People Do All Day and The Way Things Work. Richard Scarry books are the best. The twenty somethings are back from college. Last Saturday they collectively entered a fantasy world with the Santa Con pub crawl. Two guys…
on “How and Why I Taught My Toddler to Read (2010)” ↗…phone and knowing where it is, and the system that's keeping me, the customer, informed. How do first responders know where to go, and how do we know who to send first? How does a wind turbine work. "What do people do all day?" (One of my favorite books, and I'm pretty old.) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/313375.What_Do_People_Do... For all of the above, and much else, software is both essential and incidental. It's…
on “Ask HN: From tech startup to finance. Bad move?” ↗> It looks innocent, makes the impression of a childlike idea how to make the world better. It answer's Richard Scarry's question, "What do people do all day?" [1] They watch each other. [1] Still one of my favorite books.
on “Fujitsu's Citywide Surveillance” ↗Richard Scarry documented this in his work "What Do People Do All Day": https://books.google.com/books?id=tuqKDQAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newb...
on “Amish Counter Top Kitchen Appliances Run Off Compressed Air (2012)” ↗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…
on “Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature” ↗…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…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading to your kids?” ↗…modern society to me. I can't resist opportunities to tour local infrastructure. Two of my favorite books: The Works: Anatomy of a City https://www.amazon.com/Works-Anatomy-City-Kate-Ascher/dp/159... What Do People Do All Day https://www.amazon.com/Richard-Scarrys-What-People-World/dp/...
on “Maps that show the anatomy of America’s vast infrastructure” ↗Couldn’t agree more - my kids have been reading the two “big ones” - Cars and Trucks and strings that go, and “What do People Do All Day?” almost every night for a year now. There’s always a delightful new discovery and it’s an endless source of “Why?” questions with interesting answers!
on “Richard Scarry Collection: Archive.org” ↗…had a bunch of Richard Scarry books as a child. As someone who grew up interested in engineering Scarry has these wonderful cut aways and illustrations of all sorts of everyday things. My favorite is What Do People Do All Day. Cut aways showing pipes and cables underground with labels and colors, blue for water, green for sewage, red with white stripes for electric and blue with white stripes for telephone (might have those…
on “Richard Scarry Collection: Archive.org” ↗What Do People Do All Day, is still my all time favorite book. I am glad I could share it with my son.
on “Richard Scarry Collection: Archive.org” ↗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…
on “Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature” ↗> 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…
on “Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature” ↗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…
on “Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature” ↗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.
on “Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature” ↗Wouldn't the exposed nerves make the pain of "brain freeze" more likely? Anyway, the relationship of tonsils and ice cream was established by Richard Scarry in "What do people do all day?" [0] 0. https://books.google.com/books?id=tuqKDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA45
on “Turns out lowly thymus may be saving your life” ↗