(1) K-3 Illustrated by Chris Raschka. The very definition of music is explored in this thoughtful look at Cage's (1912–1992) controversial musical composition, 4'33", a work that debuted with a pianist "performing" four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence in a barn in Woodstock, New York, in 1952. While there was no piano performance in the traditional sense, the absence of music amplified other sounds, such as whispers, coughs, chairs moving, and the noises of the outside world. Cage believed that "there is always something to hear inside the silence," and the book encourages readers to listen even when it feels like there is nothing to hear. It also emphasizes the art of doing nothing. Twice, the word nothing is scrawled in cursive on a double-page spread featuring just that word, giving readers space to pause and absorb the concept. Raschka's stunning illustrations further these heady concepts: staff lines, disembodied notes, accidentals, and oddly placed clefs visually capture Cage's spirit. Watercolor, pencil, and ink lend themselves well to the task of representing audiences, musicians, and experimental sound art, offering details at times and at other times just suggesting things through outlines and splotches of color. The book deftly pivots in time between Cage's childhood, the Woodstock performance, and his impact on music broadly. Extended back matter on Cage's life and work round out the book. Pair this introduction to the experimental musician with Rogers and Na's Beautiful Noise7 (rev. 11/23).

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) PS Illustrated by Jarvis. A tired penguin perched atop the head of a gentle, goofy lion wants some sleep, but the lion is wide awake: "Tell me a story, Penguin." Penguin, whose eyes are barely open, promises a story later and falls asleep. Bright digital illustrations convey Penguin's detailed dream world in gauzy bursts of color, contrasting with the stark white backgrounds of consciousness when a loud noise startles Penguin awake. Lion feigns innocence ("Oh, Penguin! Are you awake?"), but the page-turn reveals Lion sitting behind a betraying drum set. The situation escalates: Penguin keeps falling asleep, Lion keeps interfering -- crunching on a loud snack, bouncing on a trampoline. The art deftly moves the story (all in dialogue with alternating font colors for the two characters) between dreams and reality. The animated Lion, eagerly prodding for more dream details ("Sounds magical! Tell me every little thing"), makes a funny and irresistible foil to the exhausted, frustrated Penguin. In the end, Penguin relents and tells Lion a story...about a sleepy penguin who tells a lion a story. Lion declares this story lazy, but it does the trick. Lion falls asleep, and the two friends share rainbow dreams of puppies, unicorns, and candy together at last. This contentious going-to-sleep sequence between two appealing characters has all the right ingredients for sharing aloud, whether it is time for bed or simply time for a story.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Erika Lynne Jones. Finally, the secret's out: librarians can be loud! Penelope is thrilled when she is selected to be her school's ­student-­librarian of the week. She's been preparing for this moment all year by alphabetizing her home pantry and stickering any book she can find. There's only one problem: Penelope can't quite harness her "library voice." Books fly off the shelves and computer screens shatter as Penelope innocently shouts curious questions at her classmates. After one great big bellow leaves students ducking for cover and the library in shambles, Penelope starts to question whether she's meant to be a librarian after all. Her disappointment is short-lived, as she soon discovers storytime, where both her enthusiasm and her volume are of great benefit. Jones's mixed-media and collage illustrations are playful and eye-catching, with a three-dimensional feel. Penelope's shouts e=xplode across the page in giant speech bubbles reverberating all the way to outer space (the astronauts know her by name). Brown-skinned Penelope sports a rainbow skirt with ­red-and-white striped socks--a style as loud as her booming voice. Although she may want to steer clear of a research library, Penelope's eager attitude lands her the perfect gig. This one is sure to be a ­storytime favorite--especially for librarians.

Reviewer: Hill Saxton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Sara Palacios. In this expert picture-book riff on the classic Caribbean folktale "La Cucaracha Martina," Otheguy celebrates big families with room for all types of dispositions. Introverted, story-loving Martina is overwhelmed by the noise from her three boisterous tías, who have come for a visit and a fiesta. With a pounding headache, Martina slips away, falls into a pot of bubbling guava fruit, and is transported to a warm island, illustrated in calming blues. On the island, she interacts with various animals until she finds the quiet ratoncito. In the end, Martina misses her loud family and makes her way back to her tías. She shares the story of her adventure, and her tías listen attentively. Colorful collages, digitally rendered, bring a sense of vibrancy. Palacios's visual representation of the cacophony of sounds in the overlays--in particular the page with all three tías--is bright and loud; you can feel the noise pop off the page. An author's note explains the folktale tie-in and explores the trope of the loud Latina.

Reviewer: Yesica Hurd | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Il Sung Na. A sequence of "what if?" questions pulls the reader into this book about twentieth-century avant-garde composer John Cage. "What if...all the sounds you heard...sounded to you like music?" The answer is always, "Then you'd be like John Cage." Cage thought all sounds--noises made by appliances, everyday sounds like "dog tags clinking," and even silence itself--constituted music if you learned to listen. Rogers's text introduces readers to Cage's notable and controversial performances, including "4'33" (four minutes and thirty-three seconds of piano silence) and "Fontana Mix" (a staff covered with "curlicues and dots...and squiggles" that invited musicians to interpret into playable notes). Digital illustrations take one sensory experience (sound) and represent it in another (sight) in stunning ways. Bursts of bright colors, shapes, and lines that represent Cage's music are overlaid onto people, landscapes, and interiors, which are primarily rendered in black, white, and gray; at other times the colorful music peeks through windows or floats in the air, transforming dull backdrops into colorful, riotous expressions that disrupt a stodgy world. Let's not forget the endpapers, which will absorb the reader's attention: a table representing sixty different sounds with sixty different representations captures the essence of each. Readers will likely be curious to experiment themselves and "be like John Cage"; author and illustrator notes provide additional context.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Madison Safer. One person collects clay from the earth and shapes it into an ocarina; another finds metal ore deep in the ground and fashions it into a bell. In this richly illustrated and engaging exploration of the origins of musical instruments, each section focuses on a specific material, such as rocks, clay, gourds, silk, strings, or even human voices. Pimentel discusses how the material produces sound (i.e., the science of sound), lists instruments made from the material, and describes how they're played and used in different cultures and ceremonies. Safer's inviting watercolor, gouache, and colored-pencil illustrations reflect the text's emphasis on the connection between music and the human spirit. Occasional sidebars profile people who have changed the musical world through activism, creativity, and scientific discovery. The back matter includes selected sources, an explanatory note on organology and music classification systems, and ideas for making instruments at home.

Reviewer: Grace McKinney | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(1) PS Illustrated by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick. The action begins on the book's cover, where readers can spot a young child and her family walking down a busy city street, headed into a bustling café. Inside, they encounter even more noise among its preoccupied patrons, whose thought and speech bubbles fill the page with gray clouds, worries, and complaints. The young child looks out at the ­readers, asserting, "I can make a train noise now!" (This sentence and its variants compose the entire text.) Soon she hops off her chair and, through a portal in the book, sweeps her surroundings into new order as the café becomes a car on a speeding train. Across each subsequent spread, the font of the propulsive refrain/mantra ("I can make a train noise, I can make a train noise, I can make a train noise, now!") grows, shrinks, and swerves, offering cues for an engaging read-aloud experience. The train races through an In the Night Kitchen–esque cityscape of tall condiments and kitchen tools, whistles through a tunnel, and emerges into spacious, serene landscapes. As the train finally returns to the city and slows to a stop--"I...can...make...a...train...noooiiissssssse...now!"--and the ­passengers rearrange themselves into the more-familiar café, the former gloom and grayness has been transformed into cheer and community. Lush with colorful and richly detailed illustrations, this ­innovative picture book compels its readers to get on board with the sound, speed, and rhythm of a train powered by a child's imagination.

Reviewer: Grace McKinney | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2021

(1) PS Illustrated by Oge Mora. On a clear, starry night, everybody in a red brick apartment building is sound asleep. That is, until Baby Izzie sits up in her crib and starts to cry, "WaaaAAH!!" This sets off a chain reaction in which other residents are roused from their slumber and create noises of their own. Young Rayhan gets out of bed to check on his parrot, who calls out, "RraaK! Wake UP!" In another ­apartment, three boys awaken and initiate a game of flashlight tag, including the requisite "Pitter, Patter, STOMP!" Before long the whole building is astir. The perspective pulls back to reveal the exterior of the building as a cat jumps down from her perch in a winow and leaps onto a car, setting off an alarm, "WEEYOOOWEEEE-YOOOOO!!!!" It takes a while, but bit by bit everyone settles down to the familiar "­shhhhshhhhshhhh" of the street sweeper and goes back to sleep. Even Baby Izzie dozes off in her mama's arms as the charming child-centric story comes full circle. Mora's (Saturday, rev. 10/19) dynamic, richly colored collage art reinforces the warm, cozy scenes and adds depth, ­texture, and vitality to the pages. The subtle diversity, urban setting, and universality of theme make this an excellent addition to bedtime bookshelves everywhere.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

(2) K-3 Translated by Vitaly Chernetsky. With a color scheme featuring bright pink, teal blue, lemon yellow, and pops of orange, this attention-grabbing informational book starts with a bang: a rapid-fire tour of all things sound. Chock-full of whimsical infographics created with digital tools and traditional print-making processes, Romanyshyn and Lesiv's artfully arranged pages introduce the anatomy of an ear; various musical instruments (even a theremin!); human singing voice types; and the sounds of a human body, a house, a city, nature, and animals. Other spreads describe decibels and hertz (the greater wax moth has the sharpest hearing), recording and playback devices, jobs that involve audio work, and different human languages, including sign language. Then, after a few images depict breakdowns in human communication, there's a surprising tonal shift. The book's tour guide--a man toting a phonograph to collect sounds throughout the book--takes a break: "Sometimes, we need to spend time in silence." An umbrella (handed to him by a hearing-impaired woman) shields him from a torrent of onomatopoeic words raining down in overlapping vertical lines. With a page-turn, the deluge of visual graphics subsides, and a love story unfolds, told mainly through minimalist illustrations surrounded by generous white space. It's a transcendent ending--a quiet meditation on hearing, listening, silence, communication, and understanding. Appended is a list of sounds "worth listening to," with websites including an interactive world sound map and a Big Bang simulation.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Eric Comstock. Bright, eye-catching digital illustrations provide the first signs of a stimulating adventure. Ward delivers on this promise but also offers a solid and informative introduction to one of the five senses, as readers/listeners are asked to notice, investigate, and learn about sound. The book opens with a young boy hearing a sound--a card catching on bicycle spokes. The author explains that the "card moves back and forth very fast" and that both card and spokes are making a sound because they are vibrating. Turn the page and there's another sound, this time made by a cricket. "Its wings vibrate. That's what makes the sound." Listeners are then asked to take a Slinky-like toy and discover how to make sound waves. For those youngsters lacking the equipment, Comstock's illustration clearly shows the process. This pattern, of ­introducing a concept and then ­providing simple experiments to demonstrate it, ­continues throughout, as readers are asked to create high and low sounds, a simple musical instrument (a pan flute), and a string telephone. Colored rectangles throughout highlight main ideas, and the repetition of words such as vibrate, as well as the concept that vibration creates sound, ensure understanding. Experiments requiring adult help are indicated as such, and many of the materials used are everyday items. The book concludes with a glossary. Imagine this sound--the ­vibration from two hands quickly ­clapping: bravo!

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Pablo Pino. On Onomatopoeia Day, Ms. Garcia's students search for examples of, well, onomatopoeia. Outside they notice baa, moo, and other animal sounds; in a workshop they hear mechanical noises like clink and buzz, and so on. The rhyming story's rhythm is jarringly uneven, but the colorful, jam-packed illustrations show onomatopoeia hunters fully engaged, with butterfly nets and magnifying glasses in hand. Reading list.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Laura McGee Kvasnosky & Kate Harvey McGee. Cool-hued illustrations capture the still expectancy of early morning in a mountain meadow as a breeze tickles the ear of a sleeping mouse. His squeak! sets off a concatenation of animal sounds and other noises as the meadow's inhabitants wake up and begin the day. Vivid language and realistic illustrations work together to portray the animals in their natural habitats and create a rich visual and auditory read-aloud experience.

Reviewer: Emmie Stuart | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2019

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard. A little girl's experience of attending this quintessential Christmas ballet is told through its sounds: "Voof! go the velvet curtains." "Snap! goes the doll." Soft mixed-media illustrations depict the girl and her father making their way to Lincoln Center and into the theater, then capture vignettes of the production (and intermission). Both a good primer and, for those familiar with it, a fresh take on a classic.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2019

(2) PS Orange tabby Muffin recounts hearing a strange rumbling sound inside the bakery while on neighborhood night patrol and discovering it's coming from a hungry little bear's belly. Muffin's gumshoe persona is more soft-hearted than hard-boiled: the watch-cat offers the intruder (and a bigger bear) baked goods. The nighttime scenes are bathed in rich blues and blacks, with cool white moonlight and yellow streetlights adding shadows and suspense.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2019

(3) 4-6 Ghosts of Ordinary Objects series. Set in a Virginia coal-mining town during October of 1942, this second novel in Smibert's planned trilogy finds seventh grader Bone hoping that her Gift--the ability to touch an object and experience its owner's memories--will unlock the secrets of a jelly jar that steals sounds. Magic realism, historical fiction, and folktales are nimbly braided together with realistic portraits of grief.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Yasmeen Ismail. Because of giraffe Noodle's loud snoring, Sophia's new pet (her birthday gift in One Word from Sophia) may be exiled from her quirky family. Approaching the problem scientifically, inquisitive Sophia consults an acoustical engineer, then experiments, fails, and finally builds a wacky "snore transformer" that turns Noodles's snoring into "a sweet giraffian lullaby." Loose, Raschka-esque watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations complement the story's playful language. Glos.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(3) PS Illustrated by Simone Shin. A young child likes playing loudly but learns to enjoy quieter activities, too. Poetic text oscillates between the capitalized onomatopoeia of raucous play-imaginings and soothing, rhythmic rhymes of quiet-time ("A book's pages make a breeze, / a quiet shuffle across quiet knees"). In a palette of hushed blues, browns, and reds, the expressive acrylic and digital-media pictures depict "the quiet" coming and going as a weaving dust-like trail.

Reviewer: Jeannie Coutant

(3) K-3 I Can Read Book series. Illustrated by Troy Cummings. Clarence, the superheroic picture-book truck, returns in these charming early readers. Clarence makes short work of his farm chores by secretly transforming himself into a super vehicle (Farm); he teaches news chopper Stella when to use her outdoor and indoor voices (Traffic); and he babysits for energetic truck-tots (Zip). Cummings's signature chunk-tastic art is, yes, super. Review covers these I Can Read Book titles: Mighty Truck: On the Farm, Mighty Truck: The Traffic Tie-Up, and Mighty Truck: Zip and Beep.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) PS Robot Rusty laments his squeaks. Fortunately, one of the other bots he meets convinces him that "we all have funny sounds, but if we add them together... / ...we can make brand new sounds, it's really rather clever!" Clark's rhymes could use a conductor, but the music-together-sounds-better message strikes a chord, and the cheerful geometric art hits the right notes.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 When bear Albert's favorite tree starts crying loudly, other woodland animals try without success to help him cheer it up. Finally, Albert hugs the tree and discovers who's really crying: an owl who's afraid of a "big hairy monster," i.e., Albert. Having cleared up their comical misunderstanding, the two new friends enjoy the tree together. Childlike mixed-media illustrations complement the story's gentle humor.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert