Chapters :- 20
Genres :- Fiction, Children's Literature
Rating :- 8 yrs+
Author :- Andrew Clements
Synopsis :-
It all began with a competition to see who could talk less for two days. Would it be the boys or the girls? The fifth graders of the Laketon Elementary school were known as the noisest set of children in history.
Dave Packer and Lynsey Burgess decided to have a no-talking competition; boys vs. girls but it won’t be easy for either of the two.
This competition sends teachers and administrators alike into an uproar. This continues until one teacher sees the potential of this competition to look at language and other ways to communicate.
Who do you think will win? The boys or the girls?
The Review:-
This book was a very interesting read because after I was finished, I thought that I also wanted to try out the experiment.
The main character, Dave Packer, got the idea when he was doing an assignment. He learned that Mahatma Gandhi for one day each week did not speak a word to help bring order to his mind. Dave became fascinated with this and decided that he would try it out as well.
The highlight of the story comes when Dave introduces this to Lynsey Burgess. Through doing this the competition grows even bigger and becomes a competition with boys vs. girls. They had initially said that whoever lost would have an L drawn on their forehead in permanent marker. However, in the end, it was interesting how they were able to conclude who won. I won’t say what this was to prevent further spoilers.
For me, the way the writer wrote the book and went on about certain events annoyed me a bit but I think that’s because I am an adult. If you look at it from the scope of an eight-year-old child and older, this was written in a way that the children would be able to comprehend what is going on.
I think it is perfect for teaching children an important lesson also of how being quiet can be beneficial as well as being heard. Also, the element that it is important to stand up for yourself comes out strongly, especially in the end. There’s also another important point that there is strength in numbers.
We’ve given No Talking a rating of 9 out of 10. We gave this rating because not only is it a great book but it helps to teach children a lot of fundamental principles and lessons that will be beneficial to them later on in life.
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