@palmoildetectives You will rarely find so many well educated people with degrees working for so little money as in the book trade.
On the other hand we get to encourage people to read, and reading stories to children and getting them to high five our cuddly Gruffalo is a part of my job, and that's just priceless.

@palmoildetectives I've worked in various places over the years, for last 5 years in a tiny independent (but award winning!) bookshop. We do Under Fives Storytime twice a week, and it is just my favourite time of the week.
When someone asks what did you do at work this week, I can reply, I got a bunch of young children excited about reading. I'm quite happy with that as a life achievement, frankly.

@palmoildetectives I think we get as much out of it as the kids do! Even if you are having a stressful week, you can't be down when you are doing that.
Have had a lot of fun chairing author events at the book festival too, the adult events are great, getting to chat on stage with the writers, but the kid's events are just so much fun!

@palmoildetectives Oh gods, yes, it's right to fight the good fight, but it can be very wearing sometimes. We all need something that refreshes the soul. Getting kids excited about storytelling and reading does that for me. And of course we get to see some of our kids growing up, too old for storytime, off to school, but they still come in to ask about books, we get to see them advancing through their reading. Very satisfying.