The Quiet Place

Amazing pictures and the sweetest story ever. My daughter asks to read this book over and over!

There is something universal about this immigrant story - a venture into the unknown, some feelings of isolation, finding a creative outlet, family support and triumph as she finds a place for herself. Told through letters to her aunt still living in Mexico, the readers are taken on a historical journey (supposed to have taken place in the late 1940's) that is timeless - as any hero's journey.

I love the story in this one.My daughter loves it too.The colors are great and the story really is a good one.Love the format of the letters.

Lovely book!

This book to me by far is amazing, I like how it goes off a personal experience and if your someone who has gone through something like the main character has than it shows what to do when going through something like this. I can bass this off of personal experiences and this is why I choose to read this book and decided to do a school paper on it as well! I honestly love how it is in letter formation and that is how the book is set up page by page. I recommend this book to anyone to read.

I love letters, writing them and receiving them. I went in search for books having to do with letter writing and story telling. I like the sentiment behind this book but I keep missing the Spanish and her native familial culture. I was a child immigrant and looking back, our adjustment into a new country is as much as loss and gain...a mix of new and old not just losing the old and taking on the new.How are the first letters of a girl moving into a new country and learning a new language entirely written in that new language?Her native language is beautiful and part of her life and it's missing. I missed it a lot.

Once again Sarah Stewart and David Small, the husband/wife team have collaborated to produce The Quiet Place, a beautiful picture book.Set in 1957, The Quiet Place reminds me of a previous book by Stewart and Small, The Garden. I loved The Garden and upon reading The Quiet Place, I fell in love with it also.Isabel and her parents and brother have moved to the United States from Mexico. Isabel writes her aunt Lupita to tell her of their adventures in a new country, a place she now is making her home. Despite the many changes she faces, what doesn't change is how she misses her aunt.Isabel encounters many new and different things- snow, a new language and school. As she must embrace a new life, she also looks for a quiet place she can call her own. By decorating a cardboard box, Isabel has a place she feels most at home, a place where she can draw and write.The beautiful watercolor illustrations and the letters to Lupita made this a wonderful read aloud last night. My kindergarten girl enjoyed it as did my older third and fifth grade daughters.

Meh. Sarah Stewart was not herself an immigrant from Mexico, and the story seems contrived and inauthentic. Also, it's sad when an author comes up with something unique and original which is a hit, then their subsequent works mimic the same formula on the assumption, I guess, that if it worked once then certainly it will work again. Sarah Stewart's breakout children's book, in 1998, was The Gardener, which used the device of telling the story through a young girl's letters home. The Gardener is a wonderful book, and the letter-writing device worked fabulously -- for that story.This 2012 book, The Quiet Place, copies the letter format of The Gardener, to much less effect (in my opinion).The illustrations are gorgeous, and the story is sweet -- so I am certainly not trying to disparage the book. But it doesn't provide any particular insight into the immigrant experience, and overall it is just okay. The thing I liked most: while the American kids in the story are excited about birthday presents like an inflatable pool, Isabel (the protagonist) gets more excited about the boxes they come in, because she has an imagination and can use the boxes to build her own play town -- her 'quiet place.' That and the colorful illustrations are the best parts of the story, for me.

海外からの発送でしたが、写真のようにかたいダンボールのようなものに入れられて送られてきました。ほんの少し、気にならない程度の汚れはありましたが、状態はとても良かったです。あらすじが書いてありますが、ネタバレに感じてしまう方もいらっしゃると思いますので、ご注意下さい。絵本は、物語にでてくる少女イサベルが書く手紙によって話が進んでいくので、登場人物同士の会話などはなく、イサベルの語りのみが物語を紡いでいます。アメリカへ移住することになったメキシコ人の少女イサベルが、大好きなルピータおばさんへ向けて、アメリカでの新しい生活について勉強がてら英語で手紙を書いていくのですが、なんといっても挿絵がすごく好きです。読んでいるだけで楽しくなる独特の世界が広がっています‼︎そして、語りで物語が進んでいくならではのよさがあるなと感じました。私自身このような形式の絵本はあまりよんだことが無かったので、とても面白く読めました。私は高校一年ですが、大人の方でも楽しめる内容なのではないかなと感じました。

とにかく、この絵本を手にした時は、異国情緒あふれる絵本だなと思いました。黒髪に大きい瞳、そしてヴィヴィッドな色彩で描かれた絵は、とても印象的で見るものを大いに引きつけます。絵だけではなく、話の内容も異国での生活が中心となっているので、異国の雰囲気を味わうことができます。主人公である少女の懸命な姿に、私も頑張らねばと思ってしまいました。

中古を買ったわけではないのに、傷みのある本でちょっとガッカリしました。海外からの商品まで管理するのは難しいのですね。今回は自分用だったので諦めましたが、プレゼントに使うには無理です。