Many a time we get a #kbcquery saying “My child gets scared by the sound of a pressure cooker, or the honking/reverse of a car, or the door bell….” Thankfully there are books that help introduce babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers to sounds and noises in a fun way. These can also help in cases where the child gets startled by sudden loud noises.
Zoom, Zoom, Baby! A lift the flap book by Karen Katz (0-3 years) – talks about noises vehicles make
Asma shared her suggestions:
For vehicle sounds please get books Tip Tip Dig Dig as well as Dig Dig Digging (both for 0 – 4 years). Both these books explain how useful big vehicles are. You can make sounds in fun ways and encourage the child to follow your lead. Peppa Pig: Beep Beep Brrrm! (2 – 5 years) is another fun book with sounds being very mellow.
Doggies by Sandra Boynton (0 – 3 years). In Amardeep’s words:
My child used to be similarly scared of loud, unpredictable noises. Here are two books that helped us. Rooster Raga (Tulika) and Doggies by Sandra Boynton. It may seem strange, but these books allow the parent and child to indulge in some really loud, unpredictable but enjoyable sound making. The other thing to familiarise with these sounds of course was whenever we come across that object in a book we make the sound.
Lulu Loves Noises (2 – 5 years).
Quoting Achira:
We are big Lulu fans and Lulu loves Noises is a cute little book to introduce the idea of different types of noise we hear around us to our little ones. Noises are not always bad..there are good ones too! Like the chirping of birds, woof woof of the dog, crunch crunch of the cereal! This book makes it easier for our little curious ones to relate it to things they see and love. Ideal for ages 2 and up!
Peppa Pig: Sound Books (2 – 6 years)
So Many Sounds (3 – 5 years)
Rooster Raaga (3+ years) – recommended by Amardeep
I Don’t Want To Be Quiet! (3+ years) – Meghla suggested this book. “Using this one you can explain how sometimes we have fun, sing loudly, talk loudly … Sometimes we are calm and quiet and listen.”
Farmer Falgu Goes On A Trip (3 – 7years) – Quoting Achira:
A little while ago I had asked for recommendations to help with a sound concern for my 4 year old. He gets very flustered when anyone talks loudly because he thinks speaking loudly is equivalent to scolding or shouting and that is something he doesn’t like at all. Amardeep suggested this amazing book – Farmer Falgu goes on trip written by Chitra Soundar and illustrated by Kanika Nair. And it worked for us to a great extent. I have also tried to tell him the difference between good shout and angry shout!
Farmer Falgu is tired of all the noise in his farm and goes out to find silence. He meets different people on his way. The old man starts singing and plays his drum Dum- Dum, the snake charmer plays his pungi phee-phee, the dancers go tap-tap-tap and the bullocks go trot-trot. With them Farmer Falgu also starts singing forgetting all about silence. Does he succeed in finding silence, does he get that peace he was looking for!!
I realised this is very true for us adults as well. Silence is a perspective. For me silence is in sitting with the boys reading books or playing a board game or doing some craft. All the noise is welcome really as long as we are together.
Sounds All Around – Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1 (3.5 – 8 years)
The Loud Book! (5 – 6 years) – Namrata recommends this:
You could perhaps try this book by Deborah Underwood. It goes through a whole slew of loud sounds. It may help normalize that sometimes we have loud sounds and they may be for different reasons and it is OK.
Asma’s tips for fear of pressure cook whistle:
We went thru exact same phase at 18 months wrt fear of cooker sounds. What we did was we danced and laughed and cheered and mimicked whistle sounds, soon my daughter started mimicking too. Secondly we showed her when cooker was being washed and dried and assembled and also encouraged her to touch it proving cooker can’t harm at all. All these helped her a lot and in few weeks her fear evaporated. We praised her that she is so brave every time she wasn’t scared. We also made a game who will close ears first for whistle sound:)
Helpful tips from Girija:
We never had a specific book for sounds. But I have always used any and every book to familiarise M with different sounds.Even if the book does not have it, we make up a sound , that makes it an interesting read and M enjoys all the fun.For pressure cookers ,mixers, vacuum cleaners- we play a game -exclaim loudly that the mixer is going to start -‘ghrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrr’ ,close your ears,run to different room, fake laugh, blah blah, basically anything fun that comes to mind.We repeat this during pretend play as well so that she remembers it.
Special thanks to everyone who helped curating this post – Achira, Amardeep, Asma, Girija, Namrata, Meghla, Shipra, Divya and of course #the14yearold.
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