Waiting
A Caldecott Honor Award Winner
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4.5 • 22 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
What are you waiting for? An owl, a puppy, a bear, a rabbit, and a pig wait for marvelous things to happen in this irresistible and resonant picture book by the New York Times–bestselling and Caldecott Medalist Kevin Henkes.
Five friends sit happily on a windowsill, waiting for something amazing to happen. The owl is waiting for the moon. The pig is waiting for the rain. The bear is waiting for the wind. The puppy is waiting for the snow. And the rabbit is just looking out the window because he likes to wait! What will happen? Will patience win in the end? Or someday will the friends stop waiting and do something unexpected?
Waiting is a big part of childhood—waiting in line, waiting to grow up, waiting for something special to happen—but in this book, a child sets the stage and pulls the strings. Timeless, beautiful, and deeply heartfelt, this picture book about imaginative play, the seasons, friendship, and surprises is a Caldecott Honor and Geisel Honor Book.
Share Waiting alongside Mo Willems's Waiting Is Not Easy at home or in a classroom—these books about waiting for kids will be enjoyed as picture book stories and also allow kids to explore their emotions about that ultimate frustration: waiting.
“The short sentences of the text flow with the precision one would expect from a master picture-book creator like Henkes. Little ones, to whom each experience is new, will know what it’s like to dream and wait.”—ALA Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Waiting can make anyone feel helpless and frustrated, so the five toylike knickknacks in Henkes's (Penny and Her Marble) story should be at their collective wits' end. Perched on a windowsill, this odd, diminutive crew a pig with an umbrella, a bear with a kite, a puppy attached to a sled, a rabbit on an accordion spring, and an owl have little volition of their own ("Sometimes one or the other of them went away, but he or she always came back"). But while their lives are spent waiting, their existence seems full and rich with meaning. Waiting reinforces their sense of identity: the pig waits for the rain and when it comes, "the pig was happy. The umbrella kept her dry." Waiting also connects them to each other: looking out the window together, "they saw many wonderful, interesting things," like frost on the windowpane or a sky lit up with fireworks. Henkes never tells readers explicitly what he's up to, and several incidents are wide open to interpretation and that's what makes this enigmatic, lovely book intriguing and inimitable. Ages 4 8.
