Where is the center of the sea? Why do the waves never break there? A book containing unanswerable, fantastical questions, inviting us to be curious, while simultaneously embracing what we cannot know.
A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2022 A Marginalian (fka Brain Pickings) Favorite Book of 2022 A New York Times Bestseller!A USBBY Outstanding International Book of 2023 A 2023 Bologna Ragazzi Award Amazing Bookshelf Selection Selected for the Academy of American Poets 2022 Featured Fall Books List for Young ReadersStarred reviews in The Horn Book, Kirkus, SLJ, and PW!
This bilingual Spanish-English edition is the first illustrated selection of questions, 70 in all, from Pablo Neruda's original poem (320 questions) The Book of Questions.
Holding the wonder and mystery of childhood and the experience and knowing that come with growing up, these questions are by turns lyrical, strange, surreal, spiritual, historical and political. They foreground the natural world, and their curiosity transcends all logic; and because they are paradoxes and riddles that embrace the limits of our ability to know, they engage with human freedom in the deepest way, removing the burden and constraint that somehow, we are meant to have answers to every question.
Gorgeously, cosmically illustrated by Paloma Valdivia, here Neruda's questions, already visual in themselves, gain a double visuality that makes them even more palpable and resonant. So clearly rooted in Chilean landscapes as they are, the questions are revealed as a communion with nature and its mysteries.
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Book of Questions
Where is the center of the sea? Why do the waves never break there? A book containing unanswerable, fantastical questions, inviting us to be curious, while simultaneously embracing what we cannot know.
A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2022 A Marginalian (fka Brain Pickings) Favorite Book of 2022 A New York Times Bestseller!A USBBY Outstanding International Book of 2023 A 2023 Bologna Ragazzi Award Amazing Bookshelf Selection Selected for the Academy of American Poets 2022 Featured Fall Books List for Young ReadersStarred reviews in The Horn Book, Kirkus, SLJ, and PW!
This bilingual Spanish-English edition is the first illustrated selection of questions, 70 in all, from Pablo Neruda's original poem (320 questions) The Book of Questions.
Holding the wonder and mystery of childhood and the experience and knowing that come with growing up, these questions are by turns lyrical, strange, surreal, spiritual, historical and political. They foreground the natural world, and their curiosity transcends all logic; and because they are paradoxes and riddles that embrace the limits of our ability to know, they engage with human freedom in the deepest way, removing the burden and constraint that somehow, we are meant to have answers to every question.
Gorgeously, cosmically illustrated by Paloma Valdivia, here Neruda's questions, already visual in themselves, gain a double visuality that makes them even more palpable and resonant. So clearly rooted in Chilean landscapes as they are, the questions are revealed as a communion with nature and its mysteries.
Where is the center of the sea? Why do the waves never break there? A book containing unanswerable, fantastical questions, inviting us to be curious, while simultaneously embracing what we cannot know.
A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2022 A Marginalian (fka Brain Pickings) Favorite Book of 2022 A New York Times Bestseller!A USBBY Outstanding International Book of 2023 A 2023 Bologna Ragazzi Award Amazing Bookshelf Selection Selected for the Academy of American Poets 2022 Featured Fall Books List for Young ReadersStarred reviews in The Horn Book, Kirkus, SLJ, and PW!
This bilingual Spanish-English edition is the first illustrated selection of questions, 70 in all, from Pablo Neruda's original poem (320 questions) The Book of Questions.
Holding the wonder and mystery of childhood and the experience and knowing that come with growing up, these questions are by turns lyrical, strange, surreal, spiritual, historical and political. They foreground the natural world, and their curiosity transcends all logic; and because they are paradoxes and riddles that embrace the limits of our ability to know, they engage with human freedom in the deepest way, removing the burden and constraint that somehow, we are meant to have answers to every question.
Gorgeously, cosmically illustrated by Paloma Valdivia, here Neruda's questions, already visual in themselves, gain a double visuality that makes them even more palpable and resonant. So clearly rooted in Chilean landscapes as they are, the questions are revealed as a communion with nature and its mysteries.
Sara learned Spanish in the streets of Sevilla with Antonio Marín Márquez, his bandmates, friends, and family. It was there that she got her first translation job at age 19, working for a local music zine. Her degrees are in Comparative Literature, Spanish, Bilingual Education, and Library Science. She has worked as a children’s librarian in NYC’s alternative elementary and high schools for over 21 years, reading aloud day in and day out, and teaches future librarians of all ages at Queens College’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies.
Date of Birth:
July 12, 1904
Date of Death:
September 23, 1973
Place of Birth:
Parral, Chile
Place of Death:
Santiago, Chile
Education:
University of Chile, Santiago
Read an Excerpt
III.
Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?
Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?
Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?
XIV.
And what did the rubies say
standing before the juice of pomegranates?
Why doesn't Thursday talk itself
into coming after Friday?
Who shouted with glee
when the color blue was born?
Why does the earth grieve
when the violets appear?