This story takes the latter approach, giving us a newborn cricket who is unable to sing with his legs (I guess nobody told him to hit puberty first). The accompanying double-page spreads, although large in scale, are not overwhelming and fit comfortably within the format. The Very Quiet Cricket written by Eric Carle is a story about a young cricket who cannot make the sound that all the other crickets can.

Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Very Quiet Cricket will find this post helpful. For yes and honestly, if I had encountered the presented narrative of The Very Quiet Cricket as a child, in other words when I was the age of Eric Carle’s intended audience, I would almost certainly be totally wondering why if ALL of the other insects (and the worm) are able to make sounds, are able to converse with and greet the young cricket (including an older cricket, including a member of the young cricket’s own species), why is the young cricket then not able to respond, why is the cricket not able to make any kind of sound at all until at the very end of The Very Quiet Cricket (when the very quiet cricket meets another similarly aged cricket and starts chirping). It’s not until the end, when the cricket is bigger, that he can chirp, using his wings, at another cricket. While it's kind of cute and pleasant for the first loop, after that it really becomes grating and I found it distracting.

As a child I was always a fan of Carle's unique picture books, and because I had never read The Very Quiet Cricket I was excited to give it a try. Carrying on through the pages, the dark cricket is contrasted by bright, vivid colors used to display the background. The repetition appears at the end of each page, when it says "The little cricket wanted to answer, so he rubbed his wings together. The book is also very informative for young kids as it takes the read from insect to insect describing their different characteristics and behavioral methods.

All of his animal and insect friends keep saying hello to him and he tries his hardest to rub his legs together but he just cant make the sound. Here a cricket meets nine different insects but is frustrated again and again that he cannot reply to their greetings with a chirp. The quiet cricket then makes his way into the world, meeting one insect after another, each of whom greets the little cricket with a cheery hello--the hum of a bee, the whirr of a dragonfly, the whisper of a praying mantis.

I would suggest reading this book to younger students in elementary school as it gives them basic knowledge on different insects, which is applicable to most of the elementary science curriculum. As children turn the page on this wonderful moment, they are greeted with a surprise—an actual chirp! This happens multiple times until he meets a girl cricket that is also very quiet and when he rubs his wings together this time, he makes a sound. Devise ways of showing the information gained in the investigation such as Venn diagrams, graphs and charts.