Welcome to Quiet Down There, the blog for young(ish) readers!

Jack is a 4th grader; his mom, Laura, is a little bit older.

Laura adores her book club (and she claims they actually do discuss the book; it’s not all about the wine). Jack plows through a few books a week and would love to talk about them with someone. One night, these two bibliophiles hatched an idea.

They hopped online, did some research, and tracked down a book to read together. They were rather excited about their little idea, so they ordered 2 copies of the book and planned to read it simultaneously. Then Mom realized her own library (and desk and bedside table) was already overflowing, so they made a decision:  Quiet Down There donates one copy of each book to Jack’s classroom. (We think this made his teacher rather happy, by the way.)

The title of our blog, obviously, comes from Maurice Sendak’s delightfully quirky and fantastically poetic children’s book, In The Night Kitchen, which was one of Jack’s favorite books as a little guy. In fact, Jack had the entire thing memorized and would shout out lines from it instead of napping. “Quiet down there!” was a line heard drifting down the stairs from his bedroom a lot. A whole lot. (And it always made Mom smile to hear her not-quite-2-year-old recite lines.)

Laura spent 4 years teaching high school English, so she can talk the paint off the walls when it comes to literature. Quiet Down There discusses the themes, allusions, analogies, controversies, plot lines, elements, and juicy vocabulary featured in each book, while keeping it totally pain free and kid-friendly. We will give you our honest opinions–from both boy and mom–on each book. In the end, we hope to lead kids (and grown-ups) to some great books and get them reading more.

Welcome to our book club!

Now get yourself nice and comfy; you’re not going to be able to put this one down.

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (1970)