When I Grow Up

Gore, Leonid. 2009. When I Grow Up. Scholastic

One boy wants to know what he'll be when he grows up...

There are plenty of plants and animals offering him advice--from the raindrop to the green sprout to the fuzzy caterpillar to the little chick to the...you get the idea!

"What will I be
when I grow up?"
asked the little boy.

"You could be like me,"
said the raindrop.
"I will be the fastest river
running through the hills."

Each is introduced in the "You could be like me..." format. (If you wanted to extend this one, you could come up with your own examples from life and nature.)

The heart of this one is in the illustrations. (Note the little boy surrounded by art--blank paper, colored pencils, paint). The art is just beautiful, very expressive. I love the colors. I love how the images transform. (My favorite is how images of baby birds are hidden in the tree.) This story is told on die-cut pages. I'm not clever enough to describe it right so I'll let Publisher's Weekly help out a bit, "With cheery acrylics, straightforward text and smart use of die-cuts, Gore follows a boy's musings about what he might be when he grows up."

Here's another of my favorites--the end sequence, I might add.




© Becky Laney of Young Readers