Thursday, May 1, 2008

Hush! : A Thai Lullaby


Hush!: A Thai Lullaby Is written by Minfong Ho and illustrated by Holly Meade. It was published in 1996 by Orchard Books. It is a multi-cultural children’s book. It is written as a lullaby and therefore a poem.
This story is a mother’s plea for all the animals around her home to be quiet so that he baby can sleep. The baby is not interested in sleeping at all with all the commotion around. As I said it is written to rhyme and can almost be sung. Each page also includes the noise each animal makes in the Thai language. This was the most interesting part of this story. The animal noises that they make in Thai are very different from the noises that we use in English. When we were little my Uncle taught my brother that a pig says nui-nui instead of oink-oink, because he was very involved in the Japanese culture that is what pigs say in Japanese. The pictures in this story are really great. They seem to be collages and also drawing pieced together. They are very simply, but very expressive of how the mother is feelings. The cutest part is that you see the little boy slowly peering over the edge of his bed and then climbing out and going to watch all the animals that his mother is trying to quiet. I really enjoyed this story. It was simple enough for very young children to read along and soon memorize. The fact that it is from the Thai culture makes it great for teaching kids about other cultures.

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