Hello in There!: A Big Sister’s Book of Waiting by Jo Witek (review)

“You’re in there and I’m out here, outside mama’s belly. I’m waiting for you!” says the eager soon-to-be big sister in this French import, who in a sequence of spreads addresses her gestating sibling in Mom’s abdomen to talk about what they’ll do and to share excitement about the baby’s arrival. It’s design that really makes the book, as in every spread the girl’s musings on the recto face an image of Mom’s growing belly, with a liftable tab revealing a baby who grows increasingly larger as the months go by. The visuals are airily whimsical, with crisp yet scrawly linework and with touches of scribbled color floating across the creamy pages; the patterns on the mother’s ballooning belly correspond neatly to elements in the girl’s world, and touches of graphic creativity add interest to the flap that hides the burgeoning baby (who’s essentially a full-grown infant, tumbling and cooing). Unfortunately, the flaps aren’t likely to stand up to library-level use, and since there’s no tension or story development, there’s little to hold audience interest once the paper engineering fails. For a one-on-one use, however, this has charming possibilities for helping a youngster to envision (and get accustomed to) the impending sibling, though you might want to be ready with some correctives about the actual physiology.