I don’t care about  shops that put up their Christmas stuff too early.  Or Black Friday.  Or Cyber Monday.  Or shopping in general.

I’m just not that into it.

But I do have a recommendation to make for a gift.  It’s more than a recommendation, actually.  I’m ready to beg.

Here it is:  If you know a high school senior, please, this holiday season, do everyone a favor and buy them Daniel Pink’s The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko.

Yes, it came out over a year ago.  Yes, your senior wants a gas card instead.  Yes, it’s a comic book.

Actually it’s manga, which is Japanese for comic book.  Doesn’t matter.  It’s awesome.  And the teen in your life will think so, too.

Here’s why:  We live in a world of images.  Like it or not, the way messages spread now is through pictures.

We still have to take those pictures, some of them, and digest them. But with the sheer tonnage of information coming at us (especially at an 18 year old), that’s getting harder and harder to do.

It’s especially hard to do with a book.  Successful classrooms use the web to an extent that their textbooks are becoming irrelevant, or, at best, a set of notes to reference the actual work going on.

So when you sit down to talk with a person who has in front of them the limitless options they see everyday on the internet, and ask them what they want to do with their lives, you better prepare yourself for a lot of blank stares.

And giving them the Newsweek Guide To The Best Colleges isn’t going to fix that.  Most of the problems they’ll be facing in the working world don’t even exist today.

Johnny Bunko is nothing short of a revelation to most teens.  And a lot of adults.

The story is about Johnny, who did okay in school and took the path everyone said he should take.  Then, of course, he realizes that he’s stuck in a cubicle for life with no idea how he got there.  Pretty standard stuff, right?

This is different.  This is brilliant.  The book’s lessons are essential.

The publisher bills it as “the last career guide you’ll ever need”.  For a lot of teenagers today, they’re right.

You might be tempted to think that a book about careers isn’t a gift for the holidays.  That’s a graduation thing, right?  A little helpful advice from their favorite adult-type-person?

Wrong.

The holidays are exactly when they need this book.  Graduation is too late.  The holidays are the big break before the home stretch.  That’s when their minds need to race and roam, to find direction.

Give them some.  It’s a gift that they’ll definitely thank you for.