I don’t know about you, but “quiet time” at our house is often a challenge to bring about. One last chase through the house fills the hallways with our daughter’s delighted screams, and everything with wheels seems to call to our toddler son, “Come play with me!” Bath time oscillates between relaxing and splashy, as the last bits of the day’s energy wiggle their way out of their bodies. The rituals of the evening help move things along, but bedtime stories are what finally get our wee ones to settle.

Enter the best bedtime story for young children I have come across in a long time. The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood is a soothing, reflective book. It is a collection of quiets – that is to say, of moments that are without talk and noise. In collecting these quiet moments, Underwood describes experiences that are wonderfully particular to childhood, and in a quiet, unsuspecting way shows readers the value of slowing down and paying attention.

These moments are filled with anticipation (“top of the roller coaster quiet”), embarrassment (“trying not to hiccup quiet”), fear (“pretending you’re invisible quiet”), peace (“first snowfall quiet”), absorption (“bedtime story quiet”) and then some, with each moment conveying a unique feeling of childhood. With a poet’s eye, she shows how one simple word can mean so many different things, and all the while her repetition of it hushes readers into their own “quiet time.”

Despite its list-like text, The Quiet Book really does qualify as a story, thanks to the charming and gentle illustrations of Renata Liwska, which provide a through-line to the story. Her renderings of several young friends move progressively and associatively, with images from one scene informing the next. We follow these cute youngsters through many possible quiets in their day, encountering their families and all of their surprises. Liwska’s pencil illustrations are soft; they make these characters utterly cuddly and this story a touch magical.

Now, just make sure to save this book’s “clangy companion” The Loud Book! (to be released in spring of 2011) for when the sun is up. 

By Erin Quick, Books Blogger for SmartParenting