I Want to Be [Hardcover]

Thylias Moss (Author), Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator)

Book Description

Designed to stimulate ideas, this book encourages young readers to stretch their imaginations, to experience the joy of touching, tasting, listening, and learning about everything in a miraculous and astonishing universe. Caldecott Honor book artist Jerry Pinkney has created his most powerful work for this lovely book. Full color.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A much-lauded poet brings her gifts for stretching language and patterning images to the perennial, pedestrian query, "What do you want to be?" An African American girl ponders this question as she meanders home, and her thoughts seem to take as many detours as she does on her journey. She begins playfully--"I made a grass mustache, a dandelion beard, and bird nest toupee"--and grows ever more abstract: "I double-dutched with strands of rainbow. Then I fastened the strands to my hair and my toes and became a fiddle that sunbeams played. Then I sang with the oxygen choir." When she reaches home, the girl voices a string of aspirations: "I want to be quiet but not so quiet that nobody can hear me. I also want to be sound, a whole orchestra with two bassoons and an army of cellos. Sometimes I want to be just the triangle, a tinkle that sounds like an itch." Some readers may need to be guided through the kaleidoscope of metaphors that tumble across the pages; considering each image individually may elicit the greatest response. Pinkney's liquid watercolors, more impressionistic here than in A Starlit Somersault Downhill (see review above), also employ a more vibrant palette. Bright yellows, greens and reds suffused with light heighten the dreamlike quality of the text. Both author and illustrator push the limits of their arts; they deliver illusions with the texture of truth. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ages 5-9. This begins with a young girl who is asked by several people what she wants to be. She doesn't have a ready response, but once she has time to think, she comes up with some extraordinary answers. "I want to be big but not so big that a mountain or a mosque or a synagogue seems small. . . . I want to be quiet but not so quiet that nobody can hear me. I also want to be sound, a whole orchestra with two bassoons and an army of cellos." And on a more whimsical note: "I want to be in motion but I want the ants in my pants to sometimes take a vacation." Most of all, "I want to be all the people I know, then I want to know more people so I can be them all. . . . I want to be life doing, doing everything. That's all." The ambitious text at times goes over the top and becomes pretentious in its imagery, but there is much here with which children can identify. All the pulling and pushing of life comes out in Moss' lilting writing, feelings that kids know all too well. Pinkney's lovely watercolor illustrations, featuring the African American narrator with her hair in cornrows, exude a life-affirming vitality and the sense that anything is possible. Use this as a starting point for discussion to get kids talking about what they would like to be. Ilene Cooper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Dial; 1st edition (September 6, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803712863
• ISBN-13: 978-0803712867
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Touching Story for Children of all Ages, March 25, 2000

By 

Nicole (Laurel, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Want to Be (Picture Puffins) (Paperback)

Have you ever read a children's book, and wondered, "Wow, I wish that I would have read this when I was a child?" That is exactly how I felt after reading "I Want to Be." The book had a similar impact on my students. My first grade class asks me to read this book all of the time! "I Want to Be" has inspired the students to write about "what they want to be." This book does a wonderful job of allowing children to express their creativity, yet very realistically. This is a fascinating story with beautiful illustrations. The narrator, a young child, states, "I want to be pretty, but not so pretty...." and, "I want to be tall, but not too tall..." Children love reading books that can relate directly to their lives and dreams.