My 15-month-old loved this book, with appropriately voiced reading -- whispering: 'birds are quiet!' loud voice: 'PLANES ARE LOOOOUD!'. Never fails to get giggles. Whether it's useful as a pedagogical device to help her learn what I mean when I say 'let's be quiet here' -- well, we'll see! Hope springs eternal. ( )

A bird - quiet??? Really? ( )

I've tried and tried to read this book without upsetting my son with all the sudden dynamic shifts but without success, and I choose to blame mostly the book and not his high-strung nerves or my ineptitude as a dramatic reader.

(Hmmm, judging from the other reviews he's maybe meant to be too young for it still, but come on, people, we have to challenge them.) ( )

As you probably guessed from the title, this board book focuses on the opposites pair of quiet and loud. Although it's a fairly basic and short book, it does a great job of illustrating the concepts. Each spread shows one quiet thing and one loud thing - i.e., whispering and shouting, a turtle and a monkey, etc. The text is simple and easy to read and understand but is more comprehensive than some board books that simply show a single word per page. The book stands well on its own, but it also is a real hit with some improvisation (i.e., acting out the monkey, etc.). The toddlers in my class absolutely loved this book. One looked at the cover before we started reading and already realized what the book would be about in part, letting out a pretend scream. They all sat in rapt attention to the book and asked to hear it over and over again. ( )

This is a fun and humorous board book to read aloud. The protagonist is a baby who describes various activities as either quiet and loud, such as thinking (quiet) and singing (loud). The illustrations are simple with bright colors and each page a different background color. You can do a lot with this book--act out the various quiet and loud activities, ask the child to guess which is quiet, or which is loud, or even talk about the colors and illustrations.