“Does the universe end? Like, is there a wall?” my son Anton asked me when he was five. Author Sarah Manguso and cartoonist Liana Finck found themselves drawn to this type of childlike curiosity, so they gathered thousands of questions from kids (including their own) and illustrated their favorites in a beautiful book, Questions Without Answers. Here are a few pages, plus a Q&A with the authors…
Joanna: Was it hard to narrow down the list of questions for the book? I remember my sons asking so many, like, ‘Do you have to pay the bank to get money?’ and ‘Why can’t I see my eyes?!’
Sarah: Certain juxtapositions make individual questions seem goofier or more bittersweet. A kid will ask you if clowns pee blue, right after they ask you when you’re going to die. My favorites in our book include, ‘Was mom a baby once, too? Did I play with her?’
Liana: Here are the latest from the list I keep on my phone of questions my three-year-old has asked: Do you get a lollipop when you get out of jail? Who put the mustache on your face? What color is it inside you? Why do squirrels usually not talk? Do older babies drink apple juice out of their mommies? There are so many more. I’m refraining.
I loved the book’s introduction about how kids are brilliant observers. Sarah, you wrote, ‘I learned that children are dizzyingly fast-learning engines of art and experiment. I watched my child make sense of the world not as a simple-minded cherub but as a measuring, remembering machine.’ What helped you come to this realization?
Sarah: I liked articulating why these questions fascinate me — in a nutshell, it’s that kids are hardworking empiricists. When he was four, my son asked me three questions all at once: When I was in your body, did you know me? Was I excited to meet you? Did I make the world? All three made it into the book, in order.
Liana: Sarah’s intro is like a strong blue shadow behind the questions in the book.
I teared up while reading the book, especially at the question, ‘When you die, can I come with you?’
Sarah: Many of the questions move me deeply. For me, a reliable tearjerker is, ‘After they bury you, when do they come back and dig you out again?’
I remember at my grandmother’s funeral, the vicar said, ‘Now your grandmother will be with your grandfather in the graveyard, or wherever they are in the great mystery.’ I loved that phrasing — so much of life is mysterious, no matter how old we are.
Sarah: That vicar understood that kids don’t need to be protected from the great mystery. I remember asking my mother where babies came from, but all I remember of her answer is: You have to have a special kind of egg. For years, I wondered what sort of egg I’d have to eat and if I might eat it by accident.
Liana: All I can remember today is that rather than making me less afraid of monsters, the Sesame Street characters all morphed into truly terrifying monsters in my imagination.
What are some other children’s books you like?
Liana: The ones I grew up with, by William Steig, Maurice Sendak, Ruth Krauss, and Maira Kalman, because they are (1) mind-blowing and (2) so deep in there for me. Two new discoveries, both cosmic, are: Time is a Flower by Julie Morstad, and Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers.
Sarah: I love Syd Hoff’s book The Horse in Harry’s Room. Harry tells the class about his imaginary horse during show-and-tell, and the other kids laugh at him. Then the teacher says, ‘Sometimes thinking about a thing is the same as having it.’ For smaller kids, I love Margaret Wise Brown’s book I Like Stars, which isn’t nearly as popular as her blockbusters Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Reading this book — especially if you’re sleep deprived, as most new parents are — is a psychedelic experience.
Thank you, Sarah and Liana! Questions Without Answers is beautiful.
P.S. Sex-positive parenting for prudes and five children’s books on grief.
(Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1963, taken at a Parisian puppet theatre at the moment that St. George slays the dragon.)
