The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet! cover

The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet!

by Carmen Agra Deedy, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin

The law said be quiet. The rooster disagreed.

For you if

you have a child who keeps speaking when they've been told it's time to be quiet

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$19 MSRP · Hardcover
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.

In the village of La Paz, the noise became too much — or so the mayor said — and a law was passed: no singing. The birds obeyed. The children obeyed. Everyone obeyed but the rooster. Deedy's picture book is a fable about what happens when authority decides to control sound, and what one stubborn voice can do to a village that has gone quiet. Yelchin's illustrations carry the weight of the silence and the rooster's irreverence in equal measure. For ages 4–8, this is the first lesson in what a voice is for — before kids have words like press freedom, they already know the feeling of being told to be quiet when they have something important to say.

Where This Book Lives

A deceptively simple picture book with a long afterlife in a child's mind. Deedy's rooster doesn't argue or organize — he just sings. That's enough. That's the lesson.

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