When I Grow Up

Grammy Award winner and pop culture icon “Weird Al” Yankovic delivers his first picture book, bringing his trademark wit, wordplay, and silliness to a story that explores the timeless question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Funny and charming, this is a celebration of creativity and possibility. 

An Amazon Best Book of the Month! "The farce and parody make this a rare book with appeal to both kids and adults" (Booklist).

It’s Show-and-Tell time in Mrs. Krupp’s class, and Billy just can’t wait for his turn! Today the class is discussing what they want to be when they grow up, and our exuberant eight-year-old hero is bursting to tell everyone about his future career plans.

In dazzling wordplay and delicious rhymes, Billy regales his patient teacher and amazed classmates with tales of the variety of careers he wants to pursue—each more outlandish and wildly imaginative than the last!

Pop culture icon and accordion-playing songsmith “Weird Al” Yankovic is the biggest-selling comedy recording artist of all time. The recipient of multiple awards and honors, he won his first Grammy in 1985 for the parody “Eat It,” and his first Emmy in 2024 for the movie Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (starring Daniel Radcliff as Al). His concert tours crisscross the continent and globe, and he has appeared in innumerable screen roles. His award-winning albums include 2014’s Mandatory Fun, the only comedy album to ever debut at #1, and his first children’s book, When I Grow Up, was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Southern California.

Wes Hargis wanted to be a professional dirt miner when he grew up. Unstable market prices for dirt led him to pursue his second love, and he has been an illustrator for more than fifteen years. Mr. Hargis lives with his family (and his dirt) in Arizona.