
By Dinalie Dabarera
Roaring Brook Press, 2023
40 pages
9781250824271
Ages 3-7
Sona and her Sri Lankan grandpa don’t speak the same language. Her mum says that’s why their time together is “quiet.” But Sona and Seeya are far more rambunctious than the title of this picture book suggests, something readers and listeners will delight in discovering as the story unfolds. Seeya and Sona play together, garden together, and play video games together. “He’s not very good. But he tries his best.” When he reads to her, “I don’t know all the words, but I get what he means.” They cook together, eat together, and go on adventures. When she reads to him, “I can tell …… he knows what I mean.” Sona’s straightforward, childlike narrative is paired with soft colored pencil illustrations showing scenes brimming with warmth, love, and humor, Seeya being a grandpa whose playful spirit is clearly a match for his granddaughter’s. ©2023 Cooperative Children’s Book Center