City living can be noisy. And sometimes, neighbors can keep you up at night. For our next Picture Book Highlights – a series of posts where we put the spotlight on a brand-new picture book that has been ordered for all agencies – we find the noisiest building in the world!

In Noisy Night, written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by local author/illustrator Brian Biggs, the trouble starts on the 1st floor. A little boy is trying to fall asleep but there’s noise coming down from upstairs. Who (or what) is making all that noise? We move up floor to floor, finding myriad sources of noise and activities that are keeping everyone up!

Barnett’s text is spare and full of onomatopoeic sounds, perfect for interactive storytelling. But it is Bigg’s imaginative page design that steals the show. Each spread gives us a cross section view of each floor, with a glimpse of the floor below and above to help us guess who is causing the noise upstairs. This one is not to be missed!

Visit your neighborhood library to find this (noisy) book and more!