When I Grow Up

McNaughton is on top form again as he directs this little theatrical production. The artist cleverly turns the double page spread format into a stage set on which successive children act out their varying ambitions for adulthood. The reader joins the audience of parents and teachers, sharing their delight at the rich variety of talent on stage. The pace of the production is nicely varied through occasional breaks in the stage-set format, little sequential cameos and asides providing regular diversion along with ingeniously designed props for each ‘act’. McNaughton’s liberal use of red, including for the endpapers, gives the book a sumptuous richness that makes it a delight to pick up. The subject matter and its delivery through rhyming couplets are guaranteed to bring out the actor in the most reticent reading parent. The climax of the show reminds us not to be in too much of a hurry to grow up, as the last of the performers finds it all too much and declares in floods of tears that he would like to stay just as he is for the moment thank you very much.