So Many Sounds

August 1, 2018
A look at sounds throughout the day.The book opens with the child who is depicted on the cover, a child of color with brown skin and black hair, asleep in bed while a white-appearing man knocks on the bedroom door and a yellow bird sings outside. Accompanying, rhyming text reads, "LISTEN! DO YOU HEAR A SOUND? / NOISES COME FROM ALL AROUND." Subsequent pages show the child getting up and starting the day while sounds of the man, who seems to be his father, cooking breakfast, washing dishes, etc. surround him. Then the child walks to school with a woman of color who appears to be mom, and they encounter new noises outside. The school day, which includes a field trip to a concert, is filled with sounds too, and the students are a diverse group with differing skin and hair colors. Throughout, Miller's cartoon art concentrates on making sound visible. The vibrant, multicolored palette alone looks loud, and musical notes on the page, along with colors and lines emanating from instruments, pounding hammers, and so on, graphically represent various sounds described by the text. Pages are visually noisy, compositions crowded and exuberant. The child returns home at book's end to settle down as the closing text reads, "NO MORE NOISES. NOT A PEEP. EVERYONE IS SOUND ASLEEP" (here, perhaps, readers will wish the otherwise appropriately all-caps text were not shouting quite so loud).Make some noise at storytime with this book. (Picture book. 1-4)

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