The Very Quiet Cricket was published by Philomel Books in 1990, and it pushed the boundaries of what a picture book could be — not just a visual and tactile object (like The Very Busy Spider) but an auditory one. A microchip embedded in the last page produces the sound of a cricket chirping when the page is opened, creating a moment of genuine surprise and delight that makes the book’s ending unforgettable.
The story follows the now-familiar Carle structure: a young cricket hatches from an egg and meets a series of insects — a big cricket, a locust, a praying mantis, a worm, a spittlebug, a cicada, a bumblebee, a dragonfly, a mosquito, and a luna moth. Each insect greets the little cricket with its characteristic sound (“Welcome!” chirped the big cricket), and the little cricket tries to respond by rubbing his wings together. But nothing happens: “Not a sound.” The phrase is repeated on every page, building anticipation.
On the final page, the little cricket meets another little cricket — a female — and this time, when he rubs his wings together, the microchip activates and the book chirps. For a young child, the effect is magical: the book makes a sound at exactly the moment the character in the story makes a sound, collapsing the boundary between fiction and reality.
The embedded sound technology was relatively new in 1990, and Carle’s use of it was more subtle and narratively integrated than most sound books, which tend to use buttons that children press randomly. In The Very Quiet Cricket, the sound is triggered by the act of opening the page — by reading, not by pressing — which preserves the integrity of the reading experience.
Collecting The Very Quiet Cricket
First edition (Philomel Books, New York, 1990): Pictorial boards with embedded microchip.
Market values:
- First edition with working microchip: $40–$150
- First edition with non-working chip: $15–$40
- Later editions: $5–$10
The microchip’s battery has a limited lifespan, and many early copies no longer chirp. Working copies command a premium.