Value of work
Books on a person’s path into work and the benefits and responsibilities of having a job are discussed by members of LDN Connect
Glory Wants a job Roger Banks, Kathy Melling and Stephen Langley Illustrated by Mike Nicholson Books Beyond words, 68pp, £10.00 paperback, £4.95 ebook
A Good Day’s Work Sheila Hollins, Shirley-Anne Wheeler and Wayne McGregor Illustrated by Rachael Ball Books Beyond Words, 72pp, £10.00 paperback, £4.95 ebook
We all agreed that Glory Wants a Job is well illustrated in colour, very busy and vibrant, and shows people with a mix of abilities engaged in activities. Following the pictures helped us to have conversations about work and different aspects of it.
Glory wants a job and this book guides us from the very beginning of her journey when she is having conversations with her parents, through planning and until she achieves her goal and gets her dream work.
The book showed us that we need to have positive attitudes and look nice, and like working with others and learning. Also, it was very nice for us to see the characters reflect mixed ethnicity, including workers in various professional services and roles. The pictures showed that a good attitude is important.
The story is easy to read and accessible for various ages and genders to understand. Overall, we think it is a good and positive story for people in transition.
All in a day
We thought A Good Day’s Work shows good examples of employees meeting good health and safety and food handling standards in a food delivery section. Some of us have done catering so we recognised that work and what we do ourselves. The book shows us a happy customer service worker with good interaction who looked good (clean and tidy), friendly and like he was enjoying his work. We learned from the book that, when you are working, time-keeping is very important and support from friends and family is very important to succeed.
In the book, the lady started work in the hospital and did not follow instructions so was not happy as she made mistakes but, after getting support from friends and managers, she did her job well and got rewarded for it, which made her very happy and satisfied. The book showed us people of different ethnicities and ages in all different jobs, which was good and important. We also thought people looked happy and that was good to see in a workplace and helped us to think about work as a good thing to do.
However, we found the drawings in this book not as good as those in the other. The black and white drawings were not as interesting to look at. After the illustrations comes the contents page. Our facilitator was a little worried at first as the contents page usually is at the front of books, not at the back. We think the reason for this layout might be to make it more accessible for people across ages and ability. We liked it as we started the story straight away and we were each able to create a story with different words which showed our own creativity and thinking.
We would recommend this book being used in a group and 1:1 sessions, and that families, teachers and carers would be able to help if needed.
LDN Connect: www.wspld.org.uk/find-support/ldn-connect/
Beyond Words: https://booksbeyondwords.co.uk/
LDN Connect is an activity group from the Westminster Society for People with Learning Disabilities
