Why Are You So Quiet?

Written by Jaclyn Desforges · Illustrated by Risa Hugo

A girl invents a machine to uncover the power of silence.

5.0/7 Bookroo expert·4.1/5 Goodreads · 155 ratings

32 pages· AD720L

$18.95Save 5%

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Bookroo's summary

Myra Louise is constantly asked why she's so quiet. To find answers, she creates a listening machine, hoping raindrops or crickets can explain their silence. As she listens, Myra discovers that understanding isn't about answers but finding someone to share the quiet with. This story celebrates introversion and the beauty of listening in a noisy world.

From the publisher

Into a world where it often seems nobody is listening comes a poignant story that celebrates the power of silence. “Why are you so quiet?” Her teacher implores it, her classmates shout it, even her mom wonders it. Everyone, it seems, is concerned for Myra Louise. So, in search of an answer to the tiresome question nobody will stop asking, she invents a listening machine. If the raindrops, or the crickets, or the dryers at the laundromat can tell her why they’re so quiet, maybe Myra Louise can finally make everybody understand. But the more she listens, the less interested she becomes in finding any answer at all. Because Myra Louise comes to realize that all she really needs is someone else to listen alongside her. With gorgeous illustrations from Risa Hugo, Jaclyn Desforges’s first picture book champions introversion and the value of being a listener, a thinker, and an observer in our increasingly loud world.

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