Hush! A Thai Lullaby

Hush! A Thai Lullaby
By: Minfong Ho
Orchard Books 1996
Picture Book

Hush! is a picture book about a mother that is trying to put her baby to sleep, but she is scared of all of the animals around her house making too much noise and waking up the baby. It is a very simple and cute story, but what really adds to it is the culture that is infused with it. The book is written by a woman from Thailand and it is set there. All of the animals (which was a lot) are some that may be seen regularly in the states, or could be completely unknown to American children. The illustrations of all the animals are wonderful, and I feel like the book gives children more opportunities to see different animals so they could even possibly have a more exotic favorite animal.

The writing of the book was simplistic, but almost always rhymed. There was a lot of great adjectives used for the animals instead of just calling them cat, cow, pig, buffalo, and so on. Throughout the book there was a lot of repetition of the same phrases, it basically made up the whole book. This book would be wonderful for possibly a 1st grade class because readers could really build up their skills by reading the same passage over and over with only slight alterations. Also, there is the bit of irony that students may or may not catch. The mother worked so hard all day long, which we could see by illustrations changing from day to night, but all of her hard work was almost for nothing because as soon as she fell asleep her baby woke up. This could be great for an introductory lesson into irony.