Why Are You So Quiet?

Into a world where it often seems nobody is listening comes a poignant story that celebrates the power of silence.

"Why are you so quiet?" Her teacher implores it, her classmates shout it, even her mom wonders it.Everyone, it seems, is concerned for Myra Louise. So, in search of an answer to the tiresome question nobody will stop asking, she invents a listening machine. If the raindrops, or the crickets, or the dryers at the laundromat can tell her whythey'reso quiet, maybe Myra Louise can finally make everybody understand. But the more she listens, the less interested she becomes in finding any answer at all. Because Myra Louise comes to realize that all she really needs is someone else to listen alongside her.

With illustrations from Risa Hugo, Jaclyn Desforges's first picture book champions introversion and the value of being a listener, a thinkerand an observer in our increasingly loud world. (From Annick Press)

Jaclyn Desforgesis awriter, editor and poet from Ontario. She was a winner ofPEN Canada's 2018 New Voices Award.Why Are You So Quiet?is her first children's book.

Risa Hugo is a picture book illustrator from Vancouver.Why Are You So Quiet?is her first picture book.

• 52 Canadian picture books coming out in fall 2020