When You Have to Wait

Melanie Conklin writes with tender sympathy and wisdom about the unexpected upsides of waiting. A pre-kindergarten aged girl wears a yellow bathing suit with white polka dots, flip-flops, and a frown in the opening spread of the book. She doesn’t want to wait in line on a hot day to wait for her turn in the pool. In a subsequent spread, she yearns for a bicycle while riding on a trike during a neighbourhood walk, with one of her parents pushing her sibling’s stroller behind her. It feels unbearable when all she wants is to be a big kid, but no matter how hard she tries, her feet won’t reach the pedals. Straining to be taller as she stands next to a wall with penciled in measurements of her growth, the girl cries that she “won’t even WANT a bike” by the time she is big enough to ride on one. The unnamed main character has an even longer wait to endure next as her mother goes on a week-long trip. How can she bear seven days and seven nights without Mama’s hugs? Marking each day on the calendar as it passes, the little girl sits in her father’s lap and glumly accepts that all she can do is let the time pass.

It’s during that space in between longing and the desired outcome that the girl discovers life keeps on giving you unsought-for gifts—such as making a new friend while waiting in line at the pool, or making creative choices for her own lunch. On her lower-to-the-ground tricycle, she can trace the path of an earthworm at the park and is able to notice what’s going on around her, like a mother goose tending to her goslings. She and her new friend enjoy showing off their respective rock collections to each other, and she learns to treasure hearing her mother’s voice on the phone. A peaceful interlude of the girl lying upside down on the sofa has her learning to appreciate the virtues of slowing down as she closes her eyes and takes deep breaths as time ticks by. The final sentence of the story straddles three double-page spreads and encompasses the joy of stepping into the cool waters of the pool at last, of being enveloped in her mother’s embrace, and finally, finally, cycling in the park with her new friend.

Conklin’s assuring, spare text captures the quotidian frustrations and joys of being small and not having exactly what one wants right now. Hong infuses these vignettes of childhood with nostalgic, cozy watercolours, eschewing an overly bright palette in favour of gentler tones of muted gold and soothing green. Visual details that add depth to the tale include the household’s faithful marmalade cat loyally waiting alongside the main character, the girl’s little brother inheriting her tricycle as she proudly pedals a two-wheeler, and the passage of time noted through the baby goslings becoming grown-up geese by the book’s end.

When You Have to Wait is a satisfying picture book that describes an experience rather than having a narrative arc. As such, it can be a useful tool for discussion with young readers to name the ways they had to wait for something and how they coped with the passing of time. While I don’t see this as a story that children will beg to read again and again, it serves as a stepping stone for recognizing the virtues of in-between times, of slowing down, in order to welcome the everyday surprises that bring joy, too.