Questions Without Answers

Praise

“This book is for anyone who has secret questions in their mind they are too embarrassed to ask out loud. In other words, this book is for everyone.”—Lemony Snicket, bestselling author of the children’s book series A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions

“If you’ve talked with a young child for any length of time, here’s a scene you may find familiar: The kiddo is minutes-deep into some cutely semicoherent ramblings when they pause to ask you—apropos of nothing and almost in the same breath—about the nature of death. It’s not that kids say the darndest things; it’s just that they intermittently, and without warning, spring some of the most challenging questions you’ll encounter outside of a doctoral exam, or remote mountain top temple. Good on [Sarah] Manguso, then, for not only resisting the urge to flee but even collecting—in this illustrated compendium of delight and distress—some of the artfully impossible questions that kids have put to her and many other contributors.”—NPR

“If you’ve ever spent any time around young children, you’ll know that they take nothing for granted and that the world and everything in it is all news to them. The questions they ask are by turns serious, hilarious, deep, silly, and completely off the wall. Liana Finck’s delightful drawings perfectly complement the text. . . . A terrific book for anyone who has ever been around kids, or has been a kid themselves.”—New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, author of I Must Be Dreaming

“A miracle . . . Questions Without Answers captures the bewildering wonderment of a child’s mind. It’s the most profoundly silly and wise book I’ve read in years, and should be required reading for every philosophy graduate student or anyone considering having kids. Also I’ll never think of sunroofs quite the same way again.”—Bess Kalb, author of Nobody Will Tell You This But Me and Buffalo Fluffalo

“I loved this book. Each page is a love letter scribbled to my present self, from some space that still exists within me from childhood. It made me whole and left me heartbroken, all at once.”—Joana Avillez, author of D C-T!

“Sweet, smart, and shockingly insightful, this collection of questions asked by kids will leave you smiling and stumped. It reminds you of what it’s like to be curious about everything, and it shows, conclusively, that kids are first-rate philosophers who can reshape the way we see the world.”—Scott Hershovitz, professor of philosophy at University of Michigan and author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with Kids