Each 2-page spread (words 1 side, picture opposite) describes what people with many different jobs and abilities are doing, all linked with "the day you" were born". Imaginative, very descriptive, involving many senses and emotions, different actions. e.g. what an astronomer was thinking as she looks at the stars, and yet has connections with the mundane world.
What I liked: the words ending one page lead into a new event on the next.
What I didn't: the lives described were irrelevant/uninteresting to the young people of my acquaintance. The sentences were rambling and difficult to read. ( )

Been coveting this for YEARS and finally scored a used copy that was affordable. Gorgeous, quirky, and wise beyond imagination - just like Ms. Kalman. ( )

An autobiography disguised as a talk about how all of us are born and how all of us one day are asked the question, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" The narrator assures the reader that everyone does grow up and everyone meets both optimists and pessimists and everyone finds their job: "Your work. Your it. Your you." She then goes on to describe her father's job and that leads to telling the story of Mr. Letiner who sold different things every day out of a suitcase. Which leads to cousin Harriet whose father was a composer, and to Mrs. Bach the piano-tuner, and Mr. James Bell, the doorman at her apartment building, and to Mr. Pool the artist, and to the short-order cook called Barney March who says things like "Chicken soup, boots!" (which means chicken soup to go), and to Dr. Mel Smellman with whom cousin Venezuela the astronomer was in love. And on and on and on -- one crazy person and with a crazy job after another. Fantastic details... ( )