Waiting for Gregory (review)

Awaiting the arrival of a new baby is as difficult as getting a straight answer about when he's coming for the young daughter in this theatrical family. Each person she approaches gives her half-truths that spin out into fanciful yarns until her mother sorts out fact from fiction about the imminent event. Yes, babies take nine months to arrive, but the time is not spent building a giant ladder to the clouds to retrieve them; yes, her aunt's belly will grow to the size of a pumpkin, but not from eating ice cream with pickles; yes, the family will be waiting with open arms, but not so as to catch the baby as it drops from the stork. The result is a bit adult-aimed at times, especially in the text's length (and it's worth noting that the book deals with the when of the baby's arrival without explaining the how), but Holt's lyrical text is quiet and thoughtful. The partnership of this text with Swiatkowska's quirky paintings creates a fresh, original whole; the former is contemporary, while the latter veers off into the mythical past of a circus-like theatre company. Swiatkowska freely blends artistic styles to create full-on whimsy in her illustrations. Her pink-cheeked figures are lifted straight from Flemish Baroque, while her textured brushwork and open compositions lean more toward Romanticism. Nearly every spread also features a technical line drawing reminiscent of Newtonian scientific illustration, though this is a fanciful physics indeed. Though the pages remain uncluttered, there is still a lot to look at and think about, so that the wistful, evocative tone set by the art wisely though playfully complements the imaginative work that takes place while waiting for baby to arrive.