Waiting for Gregory

Waiting for Gregory is a good story to share with children age 4-7 who are awaiting the arrival of a new baby. Told from a first person point of view, the narrator, Iris, askes various family members and friends how and when her new baby cousin is going to arrive. Answers range from a giant stork dropping baby Gregory over her aunt's house, to the baby growing under a cabbage. Iris does eventually get a straight answer from her mother who tells her that all of the answers are a little bit right (baby Gregory will come in nine months, when her aunt's belly is as big as a jack-o-lantern), but the exact day and time is something that nobody knows. Waiting for Gregory also addresses the fact that although siblings and cousins may want to teach the baby a lot of things and play with him/her, it will take some time for the baby to grow. The story provides the assurance that eventually the child will grow up and be able to fish, build a snowman, and ride a pony. The text is well written. It is a little long for children under the age of four, but I think it is well-suited for older children. The illustrations are very unusual and interesting to look at. They are a whimsical combination of oil paintings and sketches. I personally enjoyed looking at the sketches portraying the various myths. I read the story to my two children, ages two and five. My five-year-old already knew that babies weren't delivered by storks. She thought it was silly to think such a thing. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the story, as did my two-year-old son, who enjoyed looking at the pictures. Sherry Ellis Author of That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN

A young girl knows that a new cousin will join their family. She is having a hard time waiting for the baby's arrival. She asks all the people in her family how will she know when it's time for the baby to be born. They all have a different answer for her!

Waiting for baby might be a familiar theme in the world of picture books, but this one is unique. Kimberly Willis Holt mixes tenderness and humor. The illustrations by Gabi Swiatowska are stunning. This book was a finalist in the picture book category of the Cybil awards.

Gabi Swiatkowska took a mildly amusing story of a girl awaiting her cousin's birth and the old wive's tales about where babies come from and turned it into something magical, surreal and both Old World and other-worldly. Little Iris wants to know when cousin Gregory will arrive, but gets a different answer from every relative: when the stork brings him or when the cabbage grows big enough or when he's ready to descend a ladder to heaven. Holt's Iris reacts with just the right blend of wonder and skepticism, but it's the illustrations that let us peep into the dazzling workings of Iris' imagination. On the title page, we're given a formal, 18th-century rendering -- in acrylic -- of Iris with be-ribboned hair and a rosebud-lipped pout. But on the very next page, the girl invites us into what looks to be a hastily penciled "Experimental engineering Theatre Company" with a shadowy interior. From then on, we're Swiatkoska's captives in page after page of odd inventions and whirring gizmos that throw off the conventions of time. Some of the characters looks straight out of old Federalist portraits, others could be late 19th century or early 20th, judging by their costumes and hairstyles. As Iris approaches one person after another, considering and then rejecting their explanations, wheels turn, minute-hands tick, a fat stork squeaks along on pulleys, time is measured by arcs of "not too long" and "not too soon", an angel peers ethereally from swirls of pale acrylic paint. The publisher gave Swiatkowska room to roam, with full bleeds on every page, and she made the most of it, thickly layering paint and enamel, or inking in a tiny figure that might be an afterthought or may be the point of the whole page, tucked into a far corner instead of center stage. The artist used acrylic, enamel, watercolor and gouache (a kind of opaque watercolor) in defying as many conventions as you possibly can without getting your own exhibit at the Met. At last, the big moment arrives, announced by Iris' uncle via a machine that is part antique telephone, trumpet, printing press and, of course, clock. I can only imagine what happens when an author picks up the galleys to her book and sees all this. Holt must've thought "Sheesh, did I win the illustrator jackpot, or what?"

I am relieved. Utterly, completely, fully, and wholly relieved. I am relieved because when it comes to illustrator Gabi Swiatkowska I never know what to expect. This is a mixed blessing. For example, when you pick up a book illustrated by Richard Scarry or Steven Kellogg you know what you expect. Their art always stays the same and their style never wavers one way or another. But pick up a book that carries the words, "paintings by Gabi Swiatkowska" on its cover and you might as well be picking up a beautifully wrapped present. Inside you may find everything you ever hoped or dreamed of, or you might be woefully disappointed in some way. Now I adored Swiatkowska's remarkable work on, "My Name Is Yoon" and cooed over its incredibly inventive pictures. Then came "Summertime Waltz" and while I essentially liked the book, I wasn't carried away by what Swiatkowska had chosen to do with it. So you can understand that when I saw "Waiting For Gregory" for the first time, I was wary. For all the book's charms, the cover illustration is not going to immediately draw you in. Open the book up though and you'll find yourself simultaneously entranced by both author Kimberly Willis Holt's touching story and Gabi Swiatkowska's wonderful interpretation of the author's events. This is not a book for everyone, but for those who like a little dreamy zaniness with their children's literature, it's going to fill a definite need. Iris has just learned that her Aunt Athena is expecting a baby boy and she simply cannot wait. His name will be Gregory and Iris is impatient to meet and play with her little cousin immediately. Unfortunately, no one is being completely forthright with Iris about this arrival. When she asks when he'll come her father says "Soon, Iris, but not too soon". Her grandfather spins her some story about a stork flying in, while her grandmother goes for the old baby-growing-underneath-a-cabbage tale. In fact, every person Iris talks to gives her an entirely different view of when Gregory will come (and in what form) until she finally asks her mom. Mom lays it on the line. Babies take nine months but no one knows what the exact day and time will be when Gregory arrives. This is an answer that Iris can handle, so she waits and waits and waits for Gregory. Finally, in the fall, her uncle calls with the good news that Gregory's here. The family rushes over and Iris realizes pretty quickly that it'll be some time before her cousin is old enough to play. "And soon, but not too soon, though not too long at all, Gregory will be waiting for me". The last page shows a little boy standing there, ready to play. Now when I wrote this summary of "Waiting For Gregory" you probably had a certain view of how the book might look. Perhaps you saw the family as living on a rural farm or in a suburban home of some sort. I'm sure author Kimberly Willis Holt had her own mental picture of the events she penned. Which makes me wonder what Holt t