While the story is delightful, the breathtaking illustrations carry this book to a wonderland of beauty. the son of Winter wants desperately to be successful in convincing his father to leave his work behind and to join him in frolicking in the beauty of frozen air.

While he waits, he carves beautiful ice sculptures, chisels waterfalls and brooks and whittles mountainside nooks. Again, he pleads with his father to stop work and come and play, The response is always the same, "I'll be right there!"

While father tells his son to wait a minute, Winter paints the grass with frost, and paints a world of glistening objects.

Then, when father is ready, he sheds a tear at the beauty painted by his son. They fly way up high in the frosty sky and make a beautiful blizzard.

This is one of the most beautifully illustrated books I've read.

Five Stars ( )

Author Lynn Plourde and illustrator Greg Couch, who previously explored the relationship of Mother Earth to her wild child, Autumn, here return to this cosmic family, setting out the tale of Winter and Father Time. Continually pleading with his father to play with him, and forced to wait while that luminary finishes his work, Winter does many wondrous things, from covering the world in sparkling white to carving ice statues. Eventually Father Time finishes his work, and he and his son play together, creating a mighty blizzard. Afterward, as they rest, Mother Earth begins preparing Spring for her awakening...

Much like its predecessor Wild Child, Winter Waits pairs an appealing narrative in rhyme with breathtakingly beautiful illustrations. The premise of these books - there are four of them, each devoted to one of the four seasons, who are the children of Mother Earth and Father Time - reminds me strongly of such classics as Sybille von Olfers' The Story of the Root Children, in which Mother Earth prepared her beautiful flower children for their sojourn in the world. Unlike von Olfers however, Lynn Plourde presents a vision of creation and the natural world that balances the feminine and masculine, something I find very appealing. It makes sense that that seasons would be the children of earth and time, when one thinks about it, and like any creation, they must balance the yin and the yang, the male and the female. Much like the story, the artwork here is magical, capturing the cosmic background of this unusual family story. Recommended to anyone who read and enjoyed Wild Child, as well as to those picture-book readers seeking winter stories. ( )