WAIT

A mother struggles to get her curious little boy to their morning train.

Flat illustrations and matte digital coloring evoke the two-dimensional, strategic thinking she needs to successfully advance her morning commute. Heavy charcoal linework and thick outlines offer broad, vivid projections of the friendly people, animals, and city scenes that greet the boy and his mother on their walk, as well as the child's strong desire to investigate and the mother's urgent need to make the train. She steers insistently headlong up the road as he zigzags and doubles back to points of interest: a waving workman, bubbling tropical fish, a butterfly, hungry ducks. Back and forth and with each page turn, the two call to each other, "Hurry" and "Wait." Sheepish grown-ups will see themselves in the mother, with her eyes and body angled away from the boy, and children will grin at this book's implicit validation of young people's desire to meander. Panoramic double-page spreads describe their movements toward the station, where the mother finally shouts out a bigger “hurry,” and large raindrops begin to fall. Just as the train boards, the boy stops dead in his tracks, seeing something in the sky that just demands a moment to enjoy. Finally, his mother agrees, scoops him up, and marvels.

Beautifully controlled pacing and an immensely satisfying rainbow resolution make this book an effective refutation of frenzied schedules.