Quiet!: 02/25/17

Quiet! by Paul Bright is the tale of jungle animals living in fear because a lion cub needs a nap. The lion, the mis-named "king of the jungle" has a cranky new baby who needs his nap. The only way to do that is to get the entire jungle (no matter that lions don't naturally live in the jungle) to shut up.

It's supposed to be a humorous look at all those animals cowering, trying to keep their children quiet. But it's not. It's an anthropomorphic rendering of male privilege, domestic violence, and the systematic subjugation of minorities.

Sure, the lion gets his comeuppance at the end of the book when he is shushed but let's stop and think about this for a second. How often does someone with that amount of power and arrogance actually get served a slice of humble pie? Most of them with privilege and power continue to act unchecked, even when behavior escalates to violence.

So for children reading (or being read) Quiet! the acid test must be, does the child relate to the lion (as a schoolyard bully, or with expectations of future male privilege) or the rest of the jungle?

One star

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