I Go Quiet
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
How should I sound?
How should I look?
When it’s my turn to speak,
I go quiet.
Here is the story of an introverted girl, hiding in silence in a world that seems overpowering and hostile. In the power of imagination and the pages of books, she sees possibilities for herself and discovers a place where her words ring loud and true.
David Ouimet’s exquisite debut translates the interior world of an anxious child into intricate paintings that convey how it feels to be lonely, isolated, and scrutinized—and how it feels to break free and soar. I Go Quiet will resonate with anyone who has struggled to find their voice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"When it's my turn/ to speak,/ I go/ quiet." This eerie, brooding picture book for older readers follows a girl whose sense of alienation isolates and silences her. She trudges alone through an unrecognizable, dreamlike city and into a gloomy, dystopian institution filled with hostile peers. All the children carry catlike masks, to be worn at prescribed times. The girl's is a mouse mask; in one spotlit scene, she removes it. "I would leave if I could fly," she says, looking up at the ceiling. Yet there is redemption. Reading is the girl's solace, she says, and although artwork by musician and artist Ouimet, making his picture book debut, stays dark, readers see intricate, delicate tendrils of life beginning to spread: "When I read, I feel that every/ living thing is part of me." In this way, she is led to solid ground: "I may be part of everything too," she decides. "And I am not small." Though the conclusion doesn't bear traditional signs of transformation, Ouimet provides the girl with promise: a sense of refuge, faith that all will be well, and a voice that will, "someday," be heard. Ages 6 8.
