Waiting for Wings
Waiting for Wings
Written and illustrated by Lois Ehlert
San Diego, Harcourt, 2001
Kerlan Collection, Children's Literature Research Collections
University of Minnesota Libraries
Ehlert harks back to the shape books as she experimented with the physical container of the pages: Hands is in the shape of her father's yellow work glove. Over the years, the pages of her books have included cutouts, spyholes, flaps that lift, and die-cut shapes that form into other figures. Ehlert plays with dimensions, page-turning surprises, and, in Waiting for Wings, transformation. Her meticulous research of the natural world results in an accuracy of scale, from the tiny details of flower petals to the size of a monarch's wingspan.
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