La Paz is a happy, but noisy village. A little peace and quiet would make it just right.

Charming art, but the story is profound: it uses the fable form to illustrate the plight of dissidents and political prisoners worldwide, but without being heavy or depressing. ( )

A great book about using your voice to stand up for what you believe in. Students enjoyed learning that in different countries people make animal sounds differently. They were shocked and this brought on research about what people say to imitate dogs, cats, pigs, etc. in other places. ( )

Top 100 pick because:

The illustrations and story line work so well together- the folktale vibe of the text and the mixed media illustrations are lively like the town and the rooster.
-Nonviolent protest captured without a preachy tone but with grace and authenticity
-Condenses complex topics and successfully makes them still understandable for a younger and older audience.
This is a fabulous book that I skimmed through when it first came out but wanted to read again and make sure I love it just as much as I did then. Yes. I still do. Even more now. ( )

In La Paz everyone loved to sing from morning until night. All that singing made it hard to hear, hard to sleep and hard to think. No one knew what to do so they fired the mayor. The newly elected mayor promised quiet and won by a landslide. There was to be no more loud singing. Anywhere. Three years went by before a rooster came into the town and began to sing. No matter what the mayor took away from the rooster, he still found something positive to sing about. Eventually, he reminding the villagers how much they loved to sing and the village went back to being noisy, just the way everyone liked it.