#200 of 1001 · February 16, 2021

What do we wait for in life? How does waiting make us feel? Sometimes waiting can be the most frustrating thing in the world. However, if we perceive something as being worth the wait, perhaps we do not mind quite so much. But what if we don’t even know what we’re waiting for? If you seek a peaceful and beautifully philosophical meditation on these ideas, then allow me to present Waiting by Kevin Henkes, a book that explores the lives of inanimate objects in the absence of human attention. Five toys sit on a windowsill, all waiting, but each for something different—the owl waiting for the moon, the pig waiting for the rain, the bear waiting for the wind, the puppy waiting for the snow, and the rabbit simply waiting. Some familiar toys leave and return, some novel ones fall to the ground and break, and finally an unexpected newcomer makes a surprising and permanent addition to the little waiting family. Henkes allows his illustrations, done in brown ink, watercolors, and colored pencils, to convey the literal, objective plot; in his text, he explores the emotional landscape of the characters’ lives. Here is a particularly strong example of the shift in modern picture books toward a minimalist aesthetic, in which (rather than pictures illustrating words and words describing pictures) writing and art complement each other to form a cohesive story. Case in point: nowhere in his text does Henkes tell us that the five animals are toys perched on a ledge. Instead, he simply shows us, and lets our imaginations do the rest. #waiting #wait #toy #toys #window #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcover #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks