I don't want to be quiet! by Laura Ellen Anderson

 A perky little girl with wild brown hair and light brown skin likes things LOUD. Playing inside or out, at school, the museum, everywhere she wants to make sure she's heard. "Food is for CRUNCHING/and drinks are for SLURPING./My feet are for SPLASHING,/my mouth is for BURPING (oops)!"

In vain do her friends, teachers, and her mother beg her for quiet, until she visits the library and breaks out... and is ashamed of the shocked looks from every single other person there. She decides to take a quick break from being loud and maybe look at a book... and is transported to another world where all the noise is inside her head! Having discovered that there's something to books, and not being loud all the time, she tries listening for a change and begins to hear sounds outside, learn at school, and enjoy the world more. But there's still plenty of LOUD when she's in the right place and at the right time.

The art has a quality that I associate with British illustrators - messy hair, and a kind of loose, sketchy style. The brisk rhymes and simple message will be attractive to teachers and parents, who really, really want kids to learn to use indoor and outdoor voices, times to listen and times to yell! But I suspect will be largely lost on kids.

Verdict: An additional purchase if you need more books about social emotional learning and appropriate behavior. It's got a nice call out for reading, but personally I've never observed previously noisy kids getting so absorbed in a book they go silent - they usually want to yell and talk about them with friends. Which is ok by me!

ISBN: 9780593117286; Published November 2020 by Philomel; Review copy provided by the publisher