Quiet Karima

Simple, line-style ink, watercolor, and colored pencil drawings introduce a child, portrayed with brown skin, who prefers listening to talking. For “Quiet Karima,” “my ears seek/ rhythm and beat”: sound-forward text describes the “tk tk tk” of “my mama/ making rotis/ in a one-two tempo,” and the shutting door and jingling of keys that occur around leaving the apartment. In first-person narration, the figure wanders through a park to a favorite place, the music store, where Mrs. T accepts Karima’s quiet: “Without silence, there’s no music.” Karima and Mrs. T use objects that Karima’s brought (“a box, a can, a pair of chopsticks”) to “tap and crash,/ groove and bash.” Chanani (the Shark Princess series) draws the two as they experiment with sound, then play drums together. Streams of color emerge from Karima’s: “I’m an instrument,/ my heart, my body,/ part of the/ world’s melody.” In a world where the protagonist’s quiet can feel like something that sets them apart, Karima finds a place to engage in both listening and expression. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3–7. (Oct.)