Other authors have asked children to consider what they'll do with their lives, but never like this. ``You were not. Now you is...And in between eating chocolate licorice and jumping on a pogo stick, you will find your job. Your work. Your it. Your you. It's true.'' With less interest in work's necessity than in its infinite variety and satisfactions, Kalman--in her own inimitable fashion- -presents a gallery of neighborhood characters--among them, Leopold Leitner, office peddler, who always has something different in his suitcase; cousin Harriet's father Eddie, who sits in a wheelchair at the piano and composes songs like the famous ``Bubba Bubba Bubba''; a sister who also sits at the piano, playing ``FÅr Elise'' until ``even the fruit on the table was screaming for her to stop''; cousin Venezuela Katz the astronomer; and Lois Mungay, who fights fires because she hates them, and ``takes twelve seconds from bed to truck'' when the alarm sounds. Kalman's frenzied, relentlessly verbal stream-of-consciousness is enhanced by the large blocks of boldface in a dazzling array of sophisticated colors harmonizing with the high-energy, superficially childlike art (flat figures, deceptively random-seeming compositions, large brush strokes, bright, contrasting colors), offering a series of wonderfully individual portraits. A tour de force, less self- indulgent (and less hilarious) than her ``Max'' books, and with broader appeal. (Picture book. 8+)
