The Sun Is So Quiet

"Quiet . . .

like a quilt on a feather bed . . .

and frost on the window . . .

we write our names knowing . . .

the sun will melt them off

But the sun is so quiet . . .

that we don't care we smile"

from Connie by Nikki Giovanni

The quiet and noisy, wintery and sometimes sunny poems in The Sun Is So Quiet will always make you smile. Nikki Giovanni describes riding rainbows, tiptoeing through strawberry patches, licking chocolaty fingers, snuggling under covers, and many other wonderful childhood moments. Ashley Bryan's warmest, most colorful illustrations make each page look like a bright, beaming smile.

Together, they have created a collection that you can linger over like a peppermint candy cane or enjoy as quickly as a snowflake melts on your nose.

A collection of poems primarily about nature and the seasons but also concerned with chocolate and scary movies.

"Quiet . . .

like a quilt on a feather bed . . .

and frost on the window . . .

we write our names knowing . . .

the sun will melt them off

But the sun is so quiet . . .

that we don't care we smile"

from Connie by Nikki Giovanni

The quiet and noisy, wintery and sometimes sunny poems in The Sun Is So Quiet will always make you smile. Nikki Giovanni describes riding rainbows, tiptoeing through strawberry patches, licking chocolaty fingers, snuggling under covers, and many other wonderful childhood moments. Ashley Bryan's warmest, most colorful illustrations make each page look like a bright, beaming smile.

Together, they have created a collection that you can linger over like a peppermint candy cane or enjoy as quickly as a snowflake melts on your nose.

Publishers Weekly

Giovanni (The Genie in the Jar) and Bryan (What a Morning!) form a fruitful partnership in this ebullient collection of 13 poems. Whatever Giovanni's topic, her poetry builds on an underlying exuberance: of cold-weather preparations, she writes, "Bears store fat/ chipmunks gather nuts/ and I collect books/ for the coming winter"; she describes little boys as "Missing teeth skinned elbows/ Always/ Stinky sticky slippery/ Sweaty and Sweet." That joy is reflected in the warmth and vigor of Bryan's radiant, rainbow hues and stylized designs. The poems hover like butterflies, darting in to make their point and then fluttering off. Some, like the bedtime poem "Covers," are short and sweet, some are contemplative ("Connie"), while others are imagistic, as in her ode to snowflakes in the e.e. cummings-esque "Winter Poem" ("i squeezed them and they became/ a spring rain and i stood perfectly/ still and was a flower"). The bold, fluid lines of the gouache and tempera compositions make for a particularly eye-catching volume, just right for reeling in the read-aloud crowd and introducing them to the joys of poetry. Ages 4-up. (Oct.)

Poet, activist, mother, and professor, Nikki Giovanni is a three-time NAACP Image Award winner and the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award, and holds the Langston Hughes Medal for Outstanding Poetry. The author of twenty-seven books and a Grammy nominee for The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection, she is the University Distinguished Professor/English at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and an Oprah Living Legend.