The sky's the limit. You can wield a hammer as a MAKER, or stir up something delish as a BAKER!

WHAT WILL YOU BE?

You can dress up fancy--be awesome at fashion. Or you can play your trumpet with great passion.

You can find your place in a great big city, or out in the country where it's green and pretty.

You can dance in a show, or coax awesome flowers to grow.

KNOWING WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, OR CHOOSING ALONG THE WAY!

You can be an intrepid trowel-wielding archaeologist and and make an awesome FIND. Or you could decide what to wear, finally making up your MIND.

You can put out many a fire, or choose to inspire. You can fly high in the sky, or dive deep under the sea. There are so many ways...

TO BE AWESOME TO ME!

Although parents may come to groan at the repetition of that word which has come to be the universal kid superlative, the truth is that the choice of occupations and other endeavors for today's tykes is, well, AWESOME.

No more mere "tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor...." The list of choices of occupations and avocations and just ways to be waiting for today's preschoolers is almost unlimited, as shown in author Jess Hitchman's and illustrator Vivienne To's recently published All Kinds of Awesome.

Author Jess Hitchman finds just the right rhymes, and illustrator Vivienne To's exuberant youngsters of all sorts having the times of their lives are inspiring to preschoolers and early graders. Writes School Library Journal, "...Pictures and sound of the words will be pure fun for preschoolers while older readers will appreciate the message that there are enough kinds of awesome to include them and their passions."

In Service: Who Will I Be? by Abby Huntsman

Isabel was stumped.

"Who do you want to be when you grow up?" her teacher asked the class. Everyone around Isabel waved their hands.

But Isabel can't answer that question. She thought about it all the way home and tells her father what happened. He asks her another question.

"Well, what makes you happy?"

Isabel remembers selling cookies at the charity Bake Sale and the time she found someone's lost pet, and her dad suggests that maybe the job for her is helping people.

"Dad, helper isn't a job!" Isabel replies.

Oh, but it is, her father replies, and he takes Isabel for a walk around the town, where there are many people working at helping others--from the teacher working as a crossing guard, the neighborhood veterinarian who helps keep pets well, the librarian who helps people find books, the fire fighters in the local station, even the garbage collector who takes the trash away. A stop at her mom's office finds her, the city's mayor, talking about her new town project with a newspaper reporter, where her mother points out that...

"Journalists help people know what's happening."

"What to be" is a big question in children's lives, and author Abby Huntsman puts in a plug for service workers of all kinds, in her Who Will I Be? (Harper, 2018).  Cozy, homey artwork by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff offers youngsters a chance to notice all the jobs grown-ups are doing throughout the neighborhood, especially those essential "community helpers." Says Publishers Weekly, "Chipper mixed-media pictures by Le-Vriethoff give the story its oomph, illuminating its message about the value of service workers."