#blogbookaday: Quiet!

Summary:  “Ssh! Listen. What’s that noise? What can we hear when we’re really, really quiet? A toddler enjoys the range of sounds they hear as their busy day comes to an end, from the bustle and chat of dinner time, to the quiet hush of their father’s voice at bedtime. The text and sensory clues to be found in this enchanting, inclusive picture book allow us to experience our home through its many noises. Auditory landmarks help all children to become familiar with daily routines, and can be particularly important to those who are blind or partially sighted.” (Taken from Goodreads)

Review: This was an interesting look at every day life from a young child’s perspective. We follow the child through the house as they point out all the sounds their house makes. What I really enjoyed in this book is that there is no gender given to the child and really could be a boy or girl, the family focus is on the dad and baby brother, but you don’t see an additional parent and that there is no race or ethnicity specified leaving it open to interpretation. The illustrations are engaging and most kids will be familiar with many of the items that make noise on the page and might be willing to do some listening of their own.

Personal Reaction: I was surprised to see that in the review they mentioned how auditory landmarks are helpful to people with vision impairments or blindness as you don’t often see picture books that point out how helpful they could be to an undeserved group of people. I don’t think most people pay attention to all the little sounds that make up their day and they might pause after reading this book to recognize all of those sounds. My only concern about the book (and it may not be an issue at all) is that they show the father blow drying the child’s hair with a blow dryer and my immediate thought was, “Do you regularly blow dry naturally curly (what appears to me), textured hair?” That being said, because I honestly don’t know, again, this may be a non-issue, but one that I wanted to bring up.

Title: Quiet!
Author: Kate Alizadeh
Illustrator: Kate Alizadeh
Publisher: Child’s Play International
Publication Date: July 1, 2017

This is a new idea I’m trying on my blog this year that was inspired by @donalynbooks and @heisereads – to provide a brief review of a picture book every day of 2018. You’ll get a brief summary of the story, a review of the content, illustrations and theme, my personal reaction to the book and all the pertinent publication information! Enjoy!