You Can Do It, Noisy Nora!

First introduced by Wells in 1973 (Noisy Nora), beloved middle child Noisy Nora makes a fittingly noisy return. This time, though, it’s not in a mischievous attempt to compete for attention but in a diligent, determined effort to learn to play an instrument. When she hears a neighbor playing Claire de Lune, Nora longs to do the same. While family members suggest she learn to play less shrilly instruments like the xylophone or banjo, Nora is adamant it be the violin. With lessons from Mrs. Yamamoto, persistent practice, and sufficient patience from everyone enduring a week of “shriek!” and “scrape!” Nora is finally prepared on the day of her mother’s birthday to surprise her with a performance. Wells paints her illustrations in watercolors on linen paper, providing simultaneously rich texture and a nostalgic simplicity that reader’s treasure in her classic, signature style. With a creative approach connecting each day of the week with another awful sound from the violin—“Tuesday / Whine! . . . Thursday / Squeak!”—Wells effectively shows that learning to play an instrument is painstaking, time-intensive, and can quite frankly sound awful in the beginning, but with persistence even early wins are possible. While many lines of the rhyming text are unique and trip off the tongue, there are a couple of moments when the rhyme scheme changes unexpectedly, making a little advance awareness necessary for a smooth read aloud.