All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings for Children by Gayle Boss, illustrated by Sharon Spitz

In this unique blend of Advent musings on the nature of waiting, fascinating facts about animals and birds, and magnificent artwork depicting creatures in their winter habitats, author Gayle Boss and illustrator Sharon Spitz join forces to develop one theme pointing ahead to the birth of Jesus: “The dark is not an end. It’s a door. It’s the way a new beginning comes.”  

In introductory notes, Boss explains how to use All Creation Waits. She writes, “This book is a kind of Advent calendar. The pages are numbered – Advent 1, Advent 2, Advent 3 – for the days of December leading to Christmas, like the little doors of an Advent calendar. And like an Advent calendar, this book’s ‘doors’ are meant to be opened slowly, one – and only one – each day… In Advent, the season when sunlight is fading and cold is creeping in, all creatures know that to be well, they must wait, they must slow their usual way of doing things. You can join creatures in their Advent waiting by staying with just one animal each day.” 

As children and their parents or caregivers journey day by day through the book, they will encounter a painted turtle stilled beneath icy water; a muskrat avidly swimming, then resting; a black bear curled in her den; honey bees huddling in the hollow of an old oak tree; a wood frog, frozen but not dead; brown bats pressed together in a cave, and more. Each creature’s experience of waiting points to the ingenuity and majesty of God, the Creator of all who sent Jesus into the world as a baby, the culmination of our Advent waiting. 

 Boss’s earlier adult edition of this book, All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings, was published in 2016. (Paraclete Press)