Header image with four cats and the text: Pussreboots, a book review nearly every day. Online since 1997
Now 2025 Previous Articles Road Essays Road Reviews Author Black Authors Title Source Age Genre Series Format Inclusivity LGBTA+ Art Portfolio Purchase Art WIP

Recent posts


Month in review

Reviews
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Avatar: The Last Airbender - North and South, Part Two by Gene Luen Yang
Bird & Squirrel On Fire by James Burks
Bird & Squirrel on the Edge! by James Burks
Captain Coconut and the Case of the Missing Bananas by Anushka Ravishankar and Priya Sundram
Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
Dreadnought by April Daniels
Edible Numbers by Jennifer Vogel Bass
Extraordinary by Miriam Spitzer Franklin
Extreme Babymouse by Jennifer L. Holm
Fenway and Hattie and the Evil Bunny Gang by Victoria J. Coe
The 52-Story Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton
Giant Days, Volume 1 by John Allison
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart
March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
The Maypop Kidnapping by C. M. Surrisi
New Cat by Yangsook Choi
Oh! by Kevin Henkes
Quiet! by Paul Bright
Rock with Wings by Anne Hillerman
Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua
Toto Trouble: Back to Crass by Thierry Coppée
Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

Miscellaneous
The February 2017 Gap
Seven narrative ways to travel
Thanks for the Memoirs

Previous month


Rating System

5 stars: Completely enjoyable or compelling
4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish


Privacy policy

This blog does not collect personal data. It doesn't set cookies. Email addresses are used to respond to comments or "contact us" messages and then deleted.


Quiet!: 02/25/17

RQuiet! by Paul Bright

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

Comments (0)


Lab puppy
Name:
Email (won't be posted):
Blog URL:
Comment:


Tumblr Mastadon Flickr Facebook Facebook Contact me

1997-2025 Sarah Sammis