Quiet Jax SONJA FITZ
Illustrations by Nisa Tomak
©2025 Sonja Fitz All Rights Reserved
To Rumi, my inspiration and my ♥
At home, sometimes he makes a lot of noise.
And sometimes he’s quiet.
But when he’s not at home, or when he’s around new people, things feel different.
A little strange, and even a little scary.
So he’s usually quiet while his eyes, ears, and mind try to understand what people are saying and doing, and why.
He was quiet at the supermarket when the lady at the counter asked the name of his toy snake….
He was afraid she’d think the name was silly so he stayed quiet.
I want to be a rock climber.
He was quiet at recess when the kids talked about what they wanted to be for Halloween….
Jax couldn’t talk as fast as they did, so he stayed quiet.
Sometimes Jax was quiet but tried to make himself heard some other way…
He whispered in his daddy’s ear to tell his piano teacher he had practiced every day.
When the woman at the bakery asked what he wanted…
her loud voice made him nervous so he just pointed.
Sometimes Jax was quiet but enjoyed other kinds of noise...
The vacuum sounded a little scary but calming, like a waterfall.
He liked listening to music on his mom’s phone with the sound turned up high…
His nervous feelings relaxed when the music was playing.
Cat got your tongue?
Sometimes when he was quiet other people seemed to wonder why.
It’s a littleisn’tnoisy it?
Sometimes when he was quiet people seemed to understand.
But Jax felt like an owl.
He just liked to watch things for a long time before he decided what to do about it.
Sometimes being quiet helped him notice things that other people didn’t.
I want to swing
I want to play tag
I want to ride bikes I want to play kickball
Sometimes when people were telling him to do something… being quiet helped him think of what he wanted to do.
He learned that there was a quiet place inside himself… that he could go to any time he needed to.
So even though sometimes being quiet made him feel scared...
Most of the time being quiet made him feel safe.
And all of the time, even though he seemed quiet from the outside…
he was never quiet inside.
Jax decided it was okay to be quiet. It was just who he was.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Try being completely quiet for 5 minutes. Was it hard?
What did you think about?
2. What fun things do people do together besides talking?
3. What is your favorite quiet thing to do?
4. What animals are quiet?
5. What animals are noisy?
6. When is it good to be quiet?
Follow up books:
• Quiet Jax Goes to School
• Quiet Jax First Sleepover
• Quiet Jax meets Noisy Nate
• Quiet Jax Has a Hard Day
• Quiet Jax At A Party
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