Random House, Inc. And G+J USA Make “Take Your Children To Work Day” Fun For Parents And Kids

Last Thursday, employees at Random House, Inc., G+J USA and Bertelsmann, Inc. participated in the U.S.-based “Take Your Children To Work” day. Random House invited Bertelsmann, Inc.’s employees to partake in its program, which began with breakfast in the cafeteria where some of the publisher’s classic storybook characters, including Nate the Great, Junie B. Jones, the Cat in the Hat and Darth Vader, greeted the children and posed for Polaroids with them.  

Random House Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Olson then welcomed the group of over 100 youngsters, ranging in age from 5-15, and their parents. Olson described Random House as a place where books are put together, with all the parents in the room contributing in their supportive ways, to the process of storytelling and book creation.    The children then broke up into four different age-appropriate group activities, which included the creation of a Poetry Quilt, providing the kids the opportunity to create poems and then assemble them into a beautiful quilt. In the Thingamajiggets, Whachmacallits and Us sector, children participated in writing activities to create imaginary and inventive words inspired by the works of Dr. Seuss.

G+J USA concurrently hosted its own full program of events, beginning with a three-hour morning session when children were engaged in various activities, from creating advertisements for their magazines to critiquing magazine covers!    Lively discussions were held with guest speakers from various G+J departments to help sons and daughters—ages 10 to 13— learn more about the exciting world of magazine publishing.    G+J USA, like Random House, devoted the day to highlighting various aspects of its business in order to provide the kids with an overall understanding of how a magazine is created from start to finish. The day’s events also included a roundtable cupcake taste test in the Family Circle Test Kitchen; a printing process walk-thru where children viewed the software that sends magazines to the printers; and a stop in Circulation where kids helped pick the most appealing free gifts to accompany magazine subscriptions.

Following the special group activities, all the Random House visitors gathered once more in the cafeteria to listen to the publisher’s celebrated author Patricia Reilly Giff, who gave a fun and interactive presentation on how she gets the ideas for her stories. The kids were also treated to previews of two movie tie-ins, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and “Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.”

Watching the “Star Wars” trailer and meeting Darth Vader was Melanie Fallon-Houska’s (Corporate Giving) son Ian’s “most favorite” parts of the day.    Barb Burg’s (Bantam Dell) daughter, Celia (age 9) said she most enjoyed seeing “Patricia Reilly Giff and learning about the parts of a book and how to make it together.” Celia’s brother Drew, (age 8), said he liked writing a poem about his favorite food, pizza, for the Poetry Quilt but said that “coming to work with my mom and meeting all the people that she works with” was really best. Gabriel Edelstein (age 5) said he really liked “delivering stuff for dad,” Glenn, who also works for Bantam Dell. Another five-year old, Will Laroche, whose dad Mark works at Fodor’s, replied that so much was his favorite that he didn’t know which one to say. He then added, “I liked the movie stuff they showed us. And I liked lunch. And I liked the craft time, and getting my new Random House backpack." Indeed, Will liked everything about the day - as did everyone else!