Waiting for Winter by Sebastian Meschenmoser

I appreciate, especially, the wordless pages. He appreciates that the 'scruffy' drawings are a lot more real, re' the animals, than a lot of picture books that make the animals look too cute or too human. But I laughed out loud several times ('Sea Shanties!') and right now my husband is reading it and laughing out loud and reading bits aloud. The font is large, the pictures' details small.

A magical and deliciously fun (entertaining) winter animal tale, one to be enjoyed not only by children, but by adults as well (and now, I should also make an effort to find, read and review the German original). Thus, only once Squirrel, Hedgehog and Bear have stopped watching or searching for snow, does the snow finally make an appearance and after having had their winter romp, the three friends happily and gladly fall asleep in the bear's den. Also and finally, is it not so true that in Waiting for Winter just like how a proverbial watched pot does not boil, the first snowflakes come when the three animals have actually stopped actively waiting for them to arrive (well, they had originally thought the old smelly socks Bear had found were the first snow, but that is beside the point). And when they then wake up the bear, he literally does look as though he has just fallen out of bed, so very cute and funny, but also so astutely observant, as many would and do act and look like this if they are rather abruptly and rudely awakened. And I definitely and appreciatively have laughed with pure, unadulterated delight at how the squirrel and the hedgehog try to stay awake for the arrival of snow by singing sea shanties (for yes, I also love singing and listening to sea shanties). Now the humour presented by Sebastian Meschenmoser in Waiting for Winter is really quite massively addictive, and the facial expressions of his depicted animals are to and for my eyes and aesthetics simply to die for (they are in many ways uproarious and hilarious, but also capture the distinct personalities of the featured animals in an almost uncanny manner). What can I say about Sebastian Meschenmoser’s Waiting for Winter except for wow, what a sweet and simply wonderful little story, with equally enchanting illustrations (although I do wish that my local library also had this book in the original German, as Herr Eichhorn und der erste Schnee but that is likely totally wishful thinking, for while there actually are quite a number of German language books available at the Hamilton Public Library, they are, of course and rather unfortunately generally geared more towards adult readers than towards children).

Waiting for Winter by Sebastian Meschenmoser