The Loud Book! by Deborah Underwood illustrated by Renata Liwska

Tuesday Treasure

Books sometimes come in pairs

Here we have The Loud Book! and the companion volume The Quiet Book! (There is also a Christmas one).

I have talked about The Quiet Book in a previous post (2011). The Loud book is another title which has recently been weeded (culled) from my former library. This book is such a treasure to share with a child. As with the Quiet Book, this story follows the little toy animals through their day. But this day is noisy!  Breakfast is a loud slurp, at school a fire truck arrives, then your team score a home run and bang, a ball crashes into the classroom window.  My favourite 'loud' is "candy wrapper loud" at the movies. Actually it is NOT my favourite loud. Movies should be quiet places. Another funny moment comes when the bird spills his marbles all over the library floor which I assume is not carpet. There are good loud noises too - such as the bowling alley winner and Aunt Tillie's banjo. Kirkus explains the noises we find in this book:

Written with the same grace and economy, 

the short glimpses of “louds” range from 

good to bad and every clanging in between.

Here is an interview with Deborah Underwood.  I was excited to see she mentions The Mousehole Cat illustrated by Nicola Bayley - another favourite book of mine.  You can see a full list of books by Canadian author Deborah Underwood here.

Back to The Loud Book!  This book is so loud - think about that. It is a book. It consists of words printed on a page and gorgeous, fuzzy illustrations (look at Renata Liwska's web site) but every reader will recognise the 'loud' in each scene. You don't need a loud voice to read this book but you do need time to sit and explore and talk about each event.

I have just made a wonderful discovery.  You can buy, in the US, the little characters from this series.

If you like the idea of exploring books in pairs here are some others you might look for in a library:

The Important book by Margaret Wise Brown and the companion volume Another Important Book.

Zoom by Istvan Banyai and the companion volume Re-Zoom.

We are best friends by Aliki and the companion volume Best Friends together again!

The Midnight Gang by Margaret Wild and the companion volume The Midnight Feast

I am sure you can think of other book pairs.  This might be an interesting theme or topic for a Kindergarten or preschool group to explore.