“Listen,” said Mrs Noah to the children. “If you want to learn how to sing, first you must learn how to listen. Close your eyes now, tight shut, and open your ears, wide, wide.”

Oh my! This story is a feast for the senses. Visually stunning and perfect lyrical prose. This is a brilliant and beautiful celebration of nature and song, and the power of listening. Really listening to the world around us.

Mrs Noah loves to sing, from dawn to dusk she sings as she works. She loves to sing to the children as they wake and as they fall asleep and all times in between. Mrs Noah sings the songs her mother taught her, songs that connect her to her past and to the natural world around them. Mrs Noah has left her old life behind to find a new life, she finds sanctuary and solace in her songs. She expresses how she feels through her singing. She remembers through her music.

The children long to sing like Mrs Noah and her husband watches lovingly as she teaches the children first to listen and then to sing. The children with the guidance of Mrs Noah learn to truly listen to the sounds of the earth. Bee hums, bird songs, dragonfly rattles, the sounds of the seas and the glory of the dawn chorus.

This is a moving book of love and loss and new life. A story of listening and singing together. A celebration of nature and song that is such a joy to read aloud. The perfect addition to this magical picture book series, written by Jackie Morris, illustrated by James Mayhew and published by Otterbarry Books

The perfect story to read alfresco before asking little readers to close their eyes and listen to the wild song of the garden. To really listen to the sounds of nature and perhaps draw or paint what they hear.

A lovely book to share with children to spark conversations around the power of listening and the joy of singing.

“Songs are best when they are shared and sung together.”