When I Grow Up

Yankovic, A. (2011). When I grow up. New York: Harper.


I could not resist buying this book when I saw the author was comedian Al Yankovic. I thought it was touching when I read the book cover and Al said his own father had told him to do whatever job that made him happy. Al has done many jobs including comedian, actor, songwriter, director and writer. The main character in the story Billy describes all the jobs he would like to have when he grows up.

As the story begins it is show and tell time in Mrs. Krupp's class.  The topic is what you want to be when you grow up? Billy is excited to be the first one to share at show and tell time. Billy shares that he wants to be the greatest chef ever seen. Mrs. Krupp's thanks Billy and asks the class who wants to go next?  Billy tells Mrs. Krupp to hold the phone because he is just getting started.  Billy continues to share many other exciting careers. Billy saves the special career for last.  Billy's creativity makes his classmates dream of exciting careers that they had never considered before.       

The first person narrative of this story makes it easy to make a personal connection to Billy and his career dreams. The poetic style used by the author adds a splash of humor and creativity to Billy's stories about his future career choices. The poetry is written in narrative form to describe how excting each new job would be for Billy. The illustrations in this book make Billy's career dreams come alive.  The illustrator uses surrealistic art as he mixes the images of Billy's classroom with unrealistic pictures of what may happen to Billy at one of his jobs. The illustrations are very humorous and would totally captivate a young audience.  

This book could be used in my classroom to introduce my community helper unit. The students could write career poems about what they want to be when they grow up.  This book would be an excellent one to use to discuss narrative poems. Also students could be instructed to write funny poems with the same rhyme patterns from the story. You could read aloud a page of the story without showing the students the illustrations and ask the students to create their own illustratation of that poem.  


Big Questions:

Can you have more than one job when you grow up?

What is the difference between a job and a career?

How does school help prepare you for your future career?


Book trailer can be viewed at :

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