The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito illustrated by Julia Kuo

It was between and underneath every sound.

And it had been there all along.

Ma

silence.

Yoshio lives in Tokyo. He meets a musician and asks "do you have a favourite sound?"  The musician says the most beautiful sound is the sound of ma, the sound of silence. 

Yoshio listens to all the sounds in this busy city. The traffic, boots splashing through puddles, rain on umbrellas, the wind in the bamboo, the whoosh of the bullet train and even the sound of chopsticks, slurping and chewing dinner with his family. Finally Yoshio goes to bed but even that is not quiet as there is a radio playing in the background. The next morning Yoshio heads off to school. He arrives very early. Inside he sits at his desk and reads a book.

"Suddenly in the middle of a page, he hear it.
No sounds, no footsteps, no people chattering, no radios, no bamboo, no kotos being tuned.
In that short moment, Yoshio couldn't even hear the sound of his own breath."

The splendid school library I visit each week like to add stickers to the front cover of their books for all sorts of book awards from around the world.  This book had an award I had not seen before. The Sound of Silence was shortlisted for the Red Dot Book award 2017-2018. This award started in 2009 and is awarded through voting by school libraries in Singapore.

Past winners which I have mentioned on this blog:

2016-7 Picture book shortlist On Sudden Hill; Younger Readers winner Diva and Flea; Older Readers winner The Thing about Jellyfish.

2015-6 Younger readers winner Pigsticks and Harold.

2014-5 Older Readers The Fourteenth Goldfish, 3rd Place Rooftoppers.

The 2018-19 award will be presented in May 2019.  I spied The elephant and Juana and Lucas on the Younger Readers list and Tin and The Goldfish boy on the Older Readers list.

I would pair The Sound of Silence with The Sound of Colours and Silence by Lemniscates. Take time to read this detailed review in Horn Book which explains the way the illustrator has used colours to show the city noises. Listen to an excellent All the wonders Podcast  where you can hear the author and illustrator talking in depth about the processes and challenges of creating this book. You can see some pages from the illustrator of The Sound of Silence here.

An inviting tale that will stretch inquisitive and observant young minds—and may even lead children to a greater appreciation of that golden commodity, silence. Kirkus