Synopses & Reviews
A lost classic about finding peace in the loudest of worlds, from the illustrator of
The Story of Ferdinand and
Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
Clang! Thump! Whoosh! Bang! The big city is a noisy place. But the Little Woman doesn’t mind, the big city is her home. Then one day she is given a wonderful gift, a “pleasant, peaceful farm” in the country. The farm is perfect—except that it’s impossible to relax with all that quiet. So the Little Woman buys a cow, she buys a dog, a cat and a duck, a pig, a rooster. Now the farm is noisy indeed, and the little lady likes it, but something is still missing. So she returns to the city to search for something that will make her farm feel just like home.
About the Author
Val Teal (1902–1997) was born in Bottineau, North Dakota, on February 14th, the third generation in her family to be born on Valentine’s Day. She did undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota during the 1920s and worked for many years as a tutor in the humanities at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. From the 1930s on she contributed personal essays and stories to such magazines as
Saturday Evening Post,
Woman’s Home Companion,
Ladies’ Home Journal,
Good Housekeeping, and
Parents, but it was not until 1943 that she published her first book,
The Little Woman Wanted Noise. In addition to her stories for children, Teal also wrote a memoir of motherhood,
It Was Not What I Expected.
Robert Lawson (1892–1957) was a prolific writer and illustrator of literature for
children and was the first person ever to receive both the Newbery and Caldecott
medals. Among his forty-odd books are such classic stories as Rabbit Hill, Ben and Me, and They Were Strong and Good. In addition to The Little Woman Wanted Noise, The New York Review Children’s Collection publishes Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf, with illustrations by Robert Lawson.