Waiting

Kevin Henkes, Caldecott Medalist, Newbery honorary and Theodor Seuss Geisel honorary, has written a new picture book, Waiting. Asked in a Horn Book interview about writing a book about waiting he said, " Children spend a lot of their time waiting. They wait in line. They have to wait their turn. They wait for their birthdays, holidays, weekends, the end of the school day. They seem to be waiting quite a lot, so I thought it would be a good idea for a book."

Five figurines are sitting on a windowsill, looking out the window waiting for something amazing to happen. The pig is waiting for the rain, the bear for the wind to fly his kite, the puppy on his sled waiting for the snow, the owl waiting for the moon and the rabbit was happy just looking out the window. One day an elephant joined them, he stayed awhile but then left forever. A cat with patches joined the animals on the windowsill. What was she waiting for? One day. like a Matryoshka doll, she popped open and four increasingly smaller  kittens popped out. Then there were ten friends looking out the window waiting for something amazing to happen.

The artwork is beautifully spare, we see the window but not the room, even when the elephant falls to the floor and breaks. The figurines move by an unseen hand. The view from the window changes. The text is also spare and the sentences short. The AR is 1.9. The Sonoma County Library has twenty-two copies.