Someday.... When I Grow Up by Tim Minchin

"T0MORROW! TOMORROW!
I LOVE YA, TOMORROW!" sang the moppet in the red dress in the Broadway musical "Annie."

And now comes another strong-minded girl character, Matilda, from the Broadway play of the same name with much the same wishes for her future.

Matilda, the feisty creation of Roald Dahl in his eponymous children's fantasy novel, Matilda, is a young girl in an unenviable position, a pupil in a Kindergarten class run by an ill-concealed genuine witch, one who clearly hates children, especially spirited girls.

But possessed of the power of telekinesis, the doughty Matilda is not to be outdone by any teacher, and Tim Minchin's theme song tells it like it's going to be when Matilda reaches her majority!

When I grow up I will be
Tall enough to reach the branches I have to reach
To climb the trees
You get to climb,
When I grow up!

Matilda the Musical (billed as "By the Brilliantly BATTY Roald Dahl :) won multiple Oliviers and five Tony Awards, had a near five-year run at the Schubert Theater, and is still on the boards on a world tour, so composer-lyricist Tim Minchin's just published jolly picture book, When I Grow Up (Scholastic Books, 2018), based on the play's anthem, is a fine choice for introducing preschoolers to the classic fantasy novel and to the movie and Broadway musical. Author-illustrator Steve Anthony (creator of Please, Mr. Panda (A Board Book) and other popular picture books, (reviews here) provides the dancing, frolicking kids of the cast and the lead player Matilda, who is the anti-Peter Pan of musical theater, determined that she will grow up in charge of herself and take charge of the world besides.