The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need

Not to be taken as the only career guide one should follow, the book is a first insight for the young man who has in his mind the doubts of working.

"The Karate Kid" meets "Office Space" through the popular Japanese medium "Manga" in this totally enjoyable read. Meet Johnny, toiling slavishly in an unrewarding and uninspiring dead-end job, thinking he's "paying his dues," and "getting his ticket punched." Enter Diana, 3-foot-nothing hard hitting tough love career counseling pixie (think spawn of Mr. Miyagi and Tinkerbell), to show Johnny the ropes and get him moving in a good orderly direction. Fun stuff. Do I think Mssrs. Pink and Pas have encapsulated the meaning of life into a 125-page comic book? Not necessarily; unlike "7 Habits" or "What Color is Your Parachute," however, this is a career guide that the recent/impending 18-24 year old high school/college graduate in your life might actually a) read all the way through, and 2) spend the remainder of the hour thinking about. That in itself is no mean feat given the distractions confronting today's youth. Now, if I were even fractionally as gifted and talented as the authors, and chose to write a career guide, I might not necessarily espouse precisely the same recipe, but that's OK; if all this book does is get read by the intended audience, and spark debate on the topic, that in itself constitutes successful literature, in my opinion. Go ahead, get the book, read it, and pass it on (along with some chopsticks); I sincerely doubt you will regret it. 10 bucks well spent. Enjoy!

Looking for a book to give your child who is about to graduate college and enter the workforce? Look no further. Johnny Bunko, written in the manga style of Japanese comics, is the answer. Author Dan (A Whole New Mind) Pink provides six life lessons, packaged in a humorous and readable comic strip book, perfectly executed for the Gen Y reader.

Young people mostly get their career advice from friends (who usually don't have any more experience or knowledge than they do) and family (who base their ideas on what worked three decades ago). Either way, you get off track pretty easily. There's plenty of good career advice in books and articles, but most young people wouldn't sit still long enough to read those sources. A Whole New Mind author, Dan Pink, comes up with a great solution: Create a career advice book in the form of manga. Most career writers when they want to simplify a message use a fable, with a few illustrations that show the key perspectives. The fable is clearly secondary to the details. In The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, the story is more interesting than the advice. Having read a lot of Mr. Pink's writing, I thought I knew what he would probably advise. But I didn't realize that he would make the story so interesting, and that the manga format would add so much power to the story telling. Nice work! What's the advice? Let me rephrase to make it clearer to you: 1. Don't be rigid about planning out each step well in advance . . . it's not possible to do. 2. Build on what you're good at (Peter Drucker originated that one) and avoid relying on what you aren't good at. 3. Focus on what you can do for others (start with the boss) rather than what's in it for you (you can read more about this in How to Be a Star at Work). 4. Keep at it. Practice makes perfect. 5. Take on big challenges and learn from them. 6. Make a difference. I like this advice. I hope my youngsters will read this book and apply it. I know they probably wouldn't if it came from dear old Dad. If I could add one piece of advice, it would be to: Set some written goals about how you want to spend your life. Those goals will help you keep focused. Well done, Dan Pink and Rob Ten Pas!