WINTER WAITS
written by Lynn Plourde, illustrated by Greg Couch
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2001

Winter sprints
across the way.
"Father, Father,
come on, let's play."
Father Time smiles
and kisses his son.
Not now, I must work,
my littlest one."
So Winter waits
for an hour or two,
painting the grass
with a frosty hue.
He whistens and glistens
the world in white
till it spangles and sparkles
ever so bright.

About the Book

Winter keeps asking his dad, Father Time, to play with him. But Father Time must set the clocks all over the world, and so his son must entertain himself while waiting. Winter not only paints the world in frost, but also carves ice sculptures and snips snowflakes. When Winter brings his dad the most beautiful snowflake that he has created, Father Time realizes that spending time with his son is more important than work. Father and son leap into the clouds and have a pillow fight which creates a blizzard and then roughhouse and tickle each other. At last, as Father Time and Winter snuggle in a snowdrift and fall fast asleep, Mother Earth tiptoes by to wake up Spring.

Reviews

School Library Journal . . . Plourde's rhyming text flows well and the language trips off the tongue: "He snizzes and snips/lacy designs./Sprools and sprinkles them/on meadows and pines." However, Couch's sumptuous illustrations are the real attention-grabbers here. Using acrylic paint and colored pencils, the artist creates a beautiful frosty landscape out of deep blues, purples, and whites. Each small touch, from Father Time's half-night/half-day face to Winter's impishly pointed icicle of a nose, adds to the otherworldly feel of the artwork. Anyone who has ever recognized the quiet magic of a snowy day will feel right at home with these atmospheric paintings. A lovely mood piece about a perennially popular topic.

Kirkus . . . Plourde and Couch continue their seasonally themed picture-book partnership, which began with Wild Child (1999), a well-received story of young Autumn and Mother Nature. In this beautifully illustrated sequel, Winter is a barefoot boy in flowing robes made of snow drifts, a Jack Frost figure in icy shades of blue and silver with an icicle nose and snowflake eyes. Plourde . . . has a flair for rich vocabulary and some ingenious made-up words. The dark, crystalline world of a winter night is wonderfully captured in Couch's swirling double-page-spread illustrations done in acrylics and colored pencils, and he works wonders with the personification of Winter and Father Time. Mother Earth appears on the last page, promising not to let Spring oversleep, so another seasonal saga seems in the works from this talented team. (The story) will be enjoyed by those imaginative children who can appreciate an absorbing allegorical adventure along the lines of Barbara Helen Berger's Grandfather Twilight (1984). Teachers of older children will also use this oversized picture book as an introduction to mythical characters or allegory or as a springboard to creative-writing assignments.

Booklist . . . Flowing lines and a rich palette give Couch's billowing, starry scenes a dreamlike quality. Little Winter has a long, pointy nose and a nightcap like a comet's tail; Father, a sphere surrounded by the planets and clockwork, is more a presence than a distinct figure. Later, as Father snuggles down with his son, Mother Earth quietly flows away to "make sure / Spring doesn't oversleep." The message is delivered in a humorous, nonpreachy way, and the metaphorical nature of the cast adds an intriguing subplot. Pair this playful vision with Stephen Gammell's Is That You, Winter? (1997) or Robert Sabuda's Blizzard's Robe (1999).

Children's Literature . . . Plourde's rhyming text is at once soothing and captivating. Couch's illustrations are sparkling and magical.

Learning Activities

· Greg Couch included many references to things that tell time in the illustrations of Father Time. Try to find all the "time" objects that make up Father Time and learn how each one helps people to tell time. For example, Father Time has a sun dial nose. Sun dials help people to tell time by using the shadow of the dial out in the sunlight to tell what time if day it is, depending upon the length and location of the sun dial's shadow. Look carefully for the other "time" parts of Father Time.

· Usually, authors are not allowed to tell illustrators of their books what to draw and how to draw—the illustrators want to use their own imaginations (which is fair since authors don't want anyone to tell them how to write their stories). But sometimes, if the words to a story do not clearly say what should be happening in the pictures, then the author might write a note for the illustrator on the story's manuscript telling the illustrator what to draw. Such was the case for the page of Winter Waits when the son gives his father a gift. The words didn't say what the gift was; and so, I wrote a note to the illustrator, Greg Couch. I wrote: "The gift should be the most beautiful snowflake in the world. No pressure, Greg!" Well, I don't know if Greg Couch felt any pressure, but he certainly did what I asked. I think the snowflake he drew IS so incredibly beautiful—I've heard people gasp out loud when they saw that page for the first time. Greg's snowflake is like a piece of intricate, glowing lace with soft pinks, blues, and yellows interwoven. Try creating your own most beautiful snowflake. Use whatever materials you want—you might cut one out of folded paper and sprinkle it with glitter, or you might form one out of white clay and add beads to it, or you might draw one with chalk onto black construction paper, or whatever. Use your imagination and have fun!

· Winter Waits has a pattern in the story that repeats over and over—that is, Winter does a winter activity (e.g. painting the world in frost, making ice sculptures) each time he waits for his father to finish working. Add to the pattern of this story—think of another winter activity that Winter could do while he is waiting for his father. Write the words and draw an illustration to go with the new part of the story that you add.

· If Winter's mom is Mother Earth and his dad is Father Time, who do you think his grandparents are? Would they be a part of Nature? Write or tell a story about Winter and his grandparents.

Story Behind the Story

I guess the most important part of the story behind the Winter Waits book is that I never intended to write this story. After the first book Wild Child was done, I was soooooo pleased with how it turned out. The illustrations that Greg Couch had created for the fall book were so beautiful that I cried when I saw them. I did not want to take away from the first book by creating a sequel that was of lesser quality. I've read too many books where the sequels were not as good as the original story. I thought it was best to leave well enough alone. But every time I did author visits to schools, children would ask me when I was going to write the next story about the Winter kid who was bouncing on the bed at the end of Wild Child. I said that I wasn't going to write a Winter story, but they all could and imagine their own Winter story. But the more children kept asking for a sequel to Wild Child, the more I thought about it. One day the idea popped into my head—what if the winter story was about a little boy Winter and his dad, Father Time? I thought having a father-son book instead of a mother-daughter book would make it different enough from Wild Child. I also knew the child would have a different problem. Autumn's problem was that she didn't want to go to bed at bedtime; whereas, Winter's problem would be that Father Time would be too busy to play with him. And so, I gave it a try and wrote a new story. When I finished the manuscript, I sent it to my agent who sent it to my editor who sent it to Greg Couch. I said that if each person along the way did not "love and believe in" the new story, then that was fine with me—the story would never be published and Wild Child would stand alone as a story rather than be part of a series. But the others thought the Winter book could be beautiful and special in its own way, and so Winter Waits became a reality.

Lynn Plourde and her dad, Leon Plourde Jr., on Father's Day 2002

I dedicated Winter Waits to my own dad, Leon Plourde Jr. When I was growing up, along with my sister and two brothers in Skowhegan, Maine, I have wonderful memories of time spent with our dad. He always worked long hours (either one job for 70 hours a week or two or three jobs that added up to as many hours); but I still always felt that he found time to make me feel special. I remember how he would lie in the middle of the living room floor and say "come and get me" and all four of us kids would pig pile on top of him, laughing and giggling ourselves silly. I tried to capture the wonderful memory of this roughhouse play in Winter Waits when Winter and Father Time have a pillow fight with the clouds and then playfully wrestle.