City Noises - Hardcover

Kuskin ( City Dog ; The Philharmonic Gets Dressed ) and first-time illustrator Flower seize on urban cacophony and turn it into a celebration of life itself in this dynamic picture book. A girl discovers a tin can in the street and holds it up to her ear to hear the secrets it keeps: the roar of city life tumbles out, like a genie escaping from a lamp. With a few well-chosen words ("Squalling Calling Crashing Rushing") the noise level intensifies, matched by comically frenetic pictures in which every object (house, car, garbage can) is personified and given a manic expression. All is frenzied movement and color. In this carnival-like setting cars honk and belch; ships smoke; people joke, laugh and yell; trains squeal. Even the words "reds and greens" are an invitation for mayhem. Noise here is equated with "Living Living Living"--and certainly the book is a whirling, swirling, crazy, colorful ode to sound. There is much child appeal here in both text and artwork, although parents may be praying for peace and quiet after successive readings. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3-5. In contrast to some other recent books on city noises, the narrative structure of this one is a slight peg on which pictures and rhymes hang. A little girl puts the side of a tin can to her ear and hears, not a roaring ocean, but city noises. She hears "running/wheeling" and "roaring/squealing," of course, but she also hears noises of a less-expected sort: "getting/giving" accompanies the picture of a woman handing fruit and sandwiches to a street dweller. Flower's artwork adds most of the excitement; its framed vistas, in Day-Glo tropical colors, are full of blunt edges and angles. There's too much going on here to make this good bedtime reading, but the book might be an interesting way to begin discussion of how pictures can show feelings and sounds as well as what people actually see before them. Mary Harris Veeder