About the Holiday

Today’s holiday began with a bit of serendipity in 2012, when some people online noticed a connection with the abbreviated date notation 12/12/12 with the well-known phrase “check one two, one two” that musicians, speakers, and sound engineers use when testing microphones before a live event. This recognition grew over time to celebrate not only the suspense inherent in those momentary sound checks, but the importance of this preparation to performers and audiences alike as well as to all the creative professionals behind this technology. Likewise, today’s book sweeps readers away on a wave of sound.

Thank you to Eerdmans Books for Young Readers for sharing this book with me for review!

Sound: Discovering the Vibrations We Hear

By Olga Fadeeva | Translated by Lena Traer

If you have a child who loves sound—making it and listening to it—and who often asks, “Didja hear that?” then they’re sure to love today’s book. Olga Fadeeva begins her fascinating deep dive into sound with a quick discussion that pings from the most simple definition (sound is “what we perceive with our ears”) to how physics describes it as a “wave that creates a vibration that passes from molecule to molecule through almost any medium,” to a visual representation using the way a stone dropped into water creates waves, plus a couple of other interesting tidbits to boot.

Text and illustration © 2025 by Olga Fadeeva. Translation by Lena Traer. Courtesy of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.

Fadeeva addresses how humans produce sounds and how we hear them, reveals what an echo and echolocation are (as well as the longest recorded echo), and swoops into the world of birds to break down the “two different types of birdsong: songs and calls.” She talks about how birds learn their particular songs and how they adapt to humans’ noise so they can be heard. Fadeeva then wings her way from birds to the sounds that animals and undersea creatures make.

Next, Fadeeva touches on the 7,000 world languages as well as sign language and hearing aids before taking readers on a marvelous time-traveling odyssey. With the turn of a page, children find themselves in the prehistoric world, listening for “the hack of a stone ace, the murmur of the wind, the crackling of a fire, the distant roar of wild animals.” Fadeeva imagines how these sounds and the peoples’ natural clapping, stomping, and vocalizations became music accompanied by the first percussion instruments—”drums, mallets, and rattles made from dried gourds filled with seeds or stones”—and wind instruments—”pipes and flutes made from reeds, bones, animal horns, and seashells.”

Text and illustration © 2025 by Olga Fadeeva. Translation by Lena Traer. Courtesy of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.

From prehistoric times, readers move on to the Ancient World with its innovation and astounding amphitheaters and actors’ face masks, both created to amplify sound from dramatic performances in an age well before microphones. Kids also drop into the Middle Ages; the early Modern Period of the 16th to 19th centuries, during which the “‘hoot’ of a steamboat whistle, the puffing of a steam train . . . [and] the sounds of a piano” first filled the air; and today’s Modern Age, where so many disparate sounds meet our ears while the music scene has exploded with innovation and experimentation.

Text and illustration © 2025 by Olga Fadeeva. Translation by Lena Traer. Courtesy of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.

Fadeeva’s coda to her absorbing work includes information on musical notation, orchestras, and various recording devices. Young readers will also be entranced by the different ways people interpret animal sounds around the world and how music can affect how we feel. Even the endpapers offer trivia and experiments to try. Sprinkled throughout the pages are fun “Try It!” activities that engage readers in experimentation.

Fadeeva’s text is dynamically accompanied by her enthralling acrylic-and-water illustrations that bring sound, history, the animal kingdom, cities, and the world of music vibrantly alive for young readers.

Lena Traer’s smooth and captivating translation of the text from Russian creates an engrossing and rewarding reading experience. She has also translated Olga Fadeeva’s Water: Discovering the Precious Resource All Around Us (2024) and Wind: Discovering Air in Motion (2023).

Text and illustration © 2025 by Olga Fadeeva. Translation by Lena Traer. Courtesy of Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.

Part of the Spectacular STEAM for Curious Readers series, Olga Fadeeva’s scintillating Sound: Discovering the Vibrations We Hear synthesizes all types of aural experiences and devices, inviting young readers to engage their sense of hearing and imagination as she introduces them to the mechanics, history, and impact of sound. The book is a must addition to any library collection as well as for media specialists and teachers looking for an exciting cross-curricular way to engage their students, music educators, and children who respond to sound or have music flowing through their veins.

Ages 8 – 14

Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2025 | ISBN 978-0802856487

Olga Fadeeva is the author and illustrator of Water: Discovering the Precious Resource All Around Us, Wind: Discovering Air in Motion (Eerdmans), and many other books for children. Wind earned a starred reviews from Kirkus and was named a USSBY Outstanding International Book, and Water earned starred reviews from Booklist and School Library Journal. Olga’s art has been honored in Italy, China, and her home country of Russia. Follow Olga on Instagram @olgafadeeva_illustrations.

Lena Traer is a Russian- and English-language translator with a focus on books for children and young adults. She has translated Wind: Discovering Air in Motion, Water: Discovering the Precious Resource All Around Us, and On the Edge of the World (all Eerdmans) into English and has also translated a variety of picture books and scientific materials into Russian. Born and raised in Siberia, Russia, Lena now lives in San Francisco.

International Sound Check Day Activity

It’s Instrumental! Game

Roll the dice in this fun game to gather all the instruments you need to create a music group. The first person to collect all 6 instrument cards is the winner!

Supplies

• Printable Paper Cube Template
• Printable Musical Instruments Cards—print one page for each player
• Scissors
• Tape

Directions

1. Print the Paper Cube Template, cut it out and assemble the cube die.
2. Print the Musical Instruments cards, cut out cards, and separate the instruments into piles
3. Players take turns rolling the die cube to collect musical instrument cards
4. The first player to collect all 6 instrument cards is the winner

You can purchase Sound: Discovering the Vibrations We Hear from these booksellers

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop

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