5 fantastic books about jobs

It’s rather ironic for me to have written a funny non-fiction book about jobs as I’ve made very few active career choices in my life. 

As a child, the only career I ever seriously hankered after was to be a newsagent – mainly because I would get to read all the comics first. I was comics-mad as a kid, and it’s a joyous surprise to find myself today writing comic-strips and working with some of the funniest cartoonists going, including Franzi Hollbacher – illustrator of The World’s First Human Cannonball and other Incredible Jobs. 

Less surprising perhaps is that my book suggestions here are also ones with cartoon-style illustrations. 

Still an absolute classic, though given its age, perhaps the title should be tweaked to What DID People Do All Day? 

A modern update might simply show Lowly Worm and Huckle Cat sitting behind screens working from home, but the energy and fun in Scarry’s colourful and often chaotic scenes from Busytown still hint at how it might actually be exciting to be grown-up and have a role in life. Sergeant Murphy, the motor-biking police dog, always seemed to have the most fun, forever chasing Bananas Gorilla. 

A wonderfully engaging look at the world of work, but with humans instead of pigs, cats and gorillas. It also has flaps – and who doesn’t love a flap?! 

This is just one obvious title I’ve picked from this series, but there are so many more that introduce curious young readers to the many career opportunities ahead of them, including Look Inside Things That Go and Look Inside Building Sites. Look Inside Jobs also suggests the possibility of someone becoming an author. Well, no one ever once mentioned that to me when I was at school! 

Aged 15, while studying for my ​‘O’ levels, I received my one and only ever piece of careers advice. I was sent to a hut on my suburban south Leicester high school campus where a bored civil servant looked at my main subjects – biology, chemistry, physics – sighed, and suggested I became a librarian. 

My many to-be-read piles at home would now seem to confirm that this wasn’t such a left-field suggestion after all. However, I did study science at university and often write about its history in my books. 

Past science was horribly misogynistic and indeed racist, so it has to be hoped that a brilliant book like this can help inspire more girls of all backgrounds to become scientists and engineers. The text rhymes too! 

Aside from his skills at portraying dim-witted sidekicks with poor hygiene, Sir Tony is also a very funny writer and popular historian, and Mike Phillips’ art enhances the text splendidly. 

My own book with Franzi has a chapter called ​‘Dirty Work’ about people who collected poo and wee for a living – if you can call that a ​‘living’ – and here Sir Tony presents similar unpleasant and dangerous jobs that were deemed suitable for children. A fascinatingly gruesome read, and perhaps also the perfect book to hand to any young person complaining about having to tidy their bedroom. 

This book brings me full circle on my almost entire lack of plans when it came to employment. Like me, Sir David grew up in Leicester. In fact, he was born the same year – 1926 – as my late dad Bernard, and they were actually at school together. 

Like me, Sir David went out into the Leicestershire countryside to study its wildlife, and – like me – loved frogs, newts and other living things. Like me, Sir David graduated from university with a degree in natural sciences but – unlike me – he stuck at it. 

The-18 year-old me thought they were going to be the next David Attenborough. Instead, I became a writer of funny non-fiction books for children. However, this was a good thing, because of course the first David Attenborough is still doing the job at which he is so amazing. There is no vacancy – and long may that remain the case! 

The World’s First Human Cannonball: and Other Incredible Jobs by Mike Barfield, illustrated by Franziska Höllbacher, is out now.