Because it’s February, I decided to dedicate today’s post to a couple of books I love: The Quiet Book and The Loud Book written by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Renata Liwska.  As a librarian, I find I’m partial to The Quiet Book! “There are many kinds of quiet:” Underwood writes. Some are lovely, like “Best friends don’t need to talk quiet” or “Making a wish quiet”. Some will bring giggles of recognition and “uh-ohs!” like “Jelly side down quiet” (I love the animals’ looks of distress as they see the jelly on the rug!) and some give words to feelings that are harder for little ones to express: “Last one to get picked up from school quiet”.

After reading The Quiet Book to kids, they’ll be begging to hear The Loud Book, but before you share it, brainstorm with them the different kinds of loud there are! They may come up with ideas similar to Underwood’s and get to have the thrill of “that’s like what I thought of!” I can imagine that your little ones will come up with some fantastically off-the-wall ideas,(and I encourage you to email Deborah Underwood and Renata Liwska with the best of your bunch!) but I can almost guarantee that they’ll be delightedly surprised with the ideas in the book they’d never considered. Some of my favorites: “Burp during quiet time loud”, “Candy wrapper loud” (Liwska draws the animals in the movie theater), and “Spilling your marbles in the library loud”.

These two books together are perfect if you are working on the Common Core State Standard of Integrating Knowledge and Ideas. You can make a chart to compare the ways to be quiet and the ways to be loud and then try some of ways you’ve read about – preferably outside!

For more information, visit deborahunderwoodbooks.com or renataliwska.com.