WAITING FOR THE WHALES

In an award-winning Canadian book, an old man's sense of harmony with the orcas (killer whales) he observes from his clifftop later helps his family accept his death. The man is a gardener whose pleasures are raising an overabundance of vegetables and watching the orcas' seasonal return. When his daughter and her baby come, unexpectedly, to live with him, he's gruff at first, but he and his granddaughter form a close, companionable bond. In time, she and her mother take over the garden; when the old man dies just as the orcas return, the mother suggests that his ``spirit has gone to leap and swim with the whales.'' Next summer, spotting a calf swimming by its mother, the child is convinced that this is true. The gentle, distancing tone is reflected in softly detailed color-pencil art, with careful compositions and dramatic shadows that pay tribute to Van Allsburg, though the mood here is stability rather than dynamic tension. Poetic and comforting. (Picture book. 4-9)