VOICES ARE NOT FOR YELLING

A little boy learns to use his words.

Little ones learn the difference between indoor voices and outdoor voices in this board book. The author introduces the two before exploring a scenario in which a little boy uses his outdoor voice when he becomes frustrated. Though very simple, this approach has great potential to help kids who may get a little angry from time to time (and who doesn’t?), emphasizing the importance of words instead of tone. The bright illustrations feature multiethnic children in an early-childhood–classroom setting, each delineated with bold, black outlines. The color scheme sensitively matches the different tones on display, surrounding the shouting child with little thunderclouds against an angry orange background and a girl espousing an indoor voice with fluffy clouds against a serene blue background. The book's final pages contain tips for parents dealing with prickly toddlers, clearly marking it as a behavioral tool.

Didactic but very helpfully so, for both little ones and their parents.