Twenty Questions

by Mac Barnett, Christian Robinson (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

As a parent, I'm always on the lookout for a book that can extend story time beyond just a few minutes. As a reader, finding something unique and clever is exhilarating. Twenty Questions by Barnett and Robinson is a discussion starter, a noggin scratcher, and an invitation to embrace our curious brains.

Award-winning creators Mac Barnett and Christian Robinson tap deep into childhood curiosity with a mind-tickling ode to the open-ended.

Not all questions have answers. Some have more than one answer. And others have endless answers, unfolding out to the edges of the world. In this spare yet expansive narrative, acclaimed author Mac Barnett poses twenty questions both playful and profound. Some make us giggle. Others challenge our assumptions. The result is a quirky, wandering exploration of where the best questions lead—to stories. Intriguing, richly interactive, and brought to vivid life by Caldecott Honor recipient Christian Robinson’s bright and whimsical illustrations, Twenty Questions is a charming invitation to speculate without limits and know no bounds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536215137
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	03/14/2023
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	37,890
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 10.30(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Mac Barnett is the author of many beloved picture books for children, including Just Because, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault; A Polar Bear in the Snow, illustrated by Shawn Harris; John’s Turn, illustrated by Kate Berube; and President Taft Is Stuck in the Bath, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen. He is also the author of several books illustrated by Jon Klassen, including Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, a Caldecott Honor Book and E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winner; the Shapes trilogy; and The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse, an E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winner. Mac Barnett lives in California.

Christian Robinson is the best-selling illustrator of several books for children, including Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book; Leo: A Ghost Story by Mac Barnett; Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book; The Bench by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex; and Nina: A Story of Nina Simone by Traci N. Todd, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book. Christian Robinson lives in California.

Editorial Reviews

01/09/2023

Barnett and Robinson (Leo: A Ghost Story) reteam for this interactive picture book, which asks questions that spur contemplation and wonder. Alongside an initial question—“How many animals can you see in this picture?”—the first pages show a green tree dotted with various creatures, including a peacock, a panther, and a snake. A page later, a lone orange tiger creeps through dense undergrowth. “How many animals can you not see in this one,” sly text reads, “because they’re hiding from the tiger?” Across a string of expansive queries, the images’ quiet understatement provides a dry counterpoint to the questions’ whimsy. Attending one spread that shows six people with different skin tones and styles, and a police officer driving by them, Barnett asks, “Which of these ladies just robbed a bank?” Some pages invite speculation (about a cow perched on a wind turbine: “How did that cow get all the way up there?”), others tease (regarding a bathtub in which two eyes are just visible: “What kind of beast lives in this bathtub?”), and some encourage storytelling (relating to a figure and seagulls pictured alongside an outcropping, “Who is she waiting for?”). All of them set readers free to notice and invent. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

In an endlessly inventive, tongue-in-cheek fashion, the eternally celebrated Barnett joins forces with Caldecott nominee Robinson to craft a series of questions that work in creative tandem with the illustrations. . . Stimulating conversation starters encourage children to use their imaginations. . . This unconventional picture book will be a hit in storytimes and for one-on-one sharing, as the responses will probably change whenever the book is read. Barnett and Robinson are both superstars in their own right. Together, and with a book that's built for rereading, this won't stay on shelves for long.
—Booklist (starred review)

Each spread creates its own world, inviting readers to discuss. . . A humorous vein runs through the book, but other emotions are also evoked, including poignancy. . . The clever, attractive final spread—posterworthy—manages to be both open-ended and final. Humans depicted are diverse. . . .Quirky entertainment to jump-start creativity.
—Kirkus Reviews

Barnett and Robinson (Leo: A Ghost Story) reteam for this interactive picture book, which asks questions that spur contemplation and wonder. . . . Across a string of expansive queries, the images’ quiet understatement provides a dry counterpoint to the questions’ whimsy. . . Some pages invite speculation. . . others tease. . . All of them set readers free to notice and invent.
—Publishers Weekly

This conversation-starting picture book presents a series of questions and invites children to supply the answers. . . . Robinson’s textured mixed-media collages provide just enough detail and sometimes pose visual questions on which the text doesn’t even touch. . . . Even the endpapers are a delight, Robinson turning everyday objects (a banana, a mug) into question marks. This is creative, interactive picture-book fun, without question.
—The Horn Book

Barnett captions a set of Robinson’s flattened, brightly hued, paper-collage style cartoon scenes with open-ended questions for inventive story smiths. . . An inspiring set of story prompts for younger audiences, with some longer thoughts for older ones slipped in.
—School Library Journal

Curious souls will be intrigued by this picture book that wanders through questions to stories. Interactive and brought to life with Christian Robinson’s vivid illustrations, Mac Barnett’s Twenty Questions is the perfect gift for families to last throughout childhood as the open-ended nature to the book keeps it fresh and new.
—The Barnes & Nobel Blog

From the Publisher

01/01/2023

K-Gr 2—Reminiscent of Chris Van Allsburg's Mysteries of Harris Burdick,but without the eeriness, Barnett captions a set of Robinson's flattened, brightly hued, paper-collage style cartoon scenes with open-ended questions for inventive storysmiths: "How many animals can you not see in this [picture] because they're hiding from the tiger?" "What is this boy" (who is standing between an ostrich and a tortoise in a wheelchair) "hiding behind his back?" "What kind of beast lives in this bathtub? And what does it eat?" The illustrator gets into the act by challenging viewers to concoct plotlines from random common items set in wordless arrays on the endpapers and, in a surreal transformation that just gets stranger the more it's looked at, turning one of a pair of lion paws in a scene into a full lion by adding a few inked lines and a tail. And perhaps with an eye to the Oh, the Places You'll Go! market, at the end a ship heads for the horizon. "Will you go with it? Are you ever coming back?" VERDICT An inspiring set of story prompts for younger audiences, with some longer thoughts for older ones slipped in.—John Edward Peters

School Library Journal

2022-11-29
Broad questions will spark discussion among readers.

Barnett opens with a question common to children’s books: “How many animals can you see in this picture?” The charming, bright green tree, surrounded by drawn, painted, and collaged animals, might be the only reason a child obediently gives a bored answer and turns the page. The next spread startles with its abrupt, sinister humor: As an orange beast with sharp fangs and claws prowls among large green leaves, the text asks, “How many animals can you not see in this one, because they’re hiding from the tiger?” Each succeeding page is totally independent from the others, with a fresh new question or questions presented in large, bold, black print and vibrant artwork. Each spread creates its own world, inviting readers to discuss—either orally or in writing—their own answers. A humorous vein runs through the book, but other emotions are also evoked, including poignancy. One off note: The absurdity of pressing readers to decide which of two men has “a better singing voice” by seeing them—not hearing them—may be lost behind the racial overtones, as one man is decidedly pink-faced and the other brown-faced. The clever, attractive final spread—posterworthy—manages to be both open-ended and final. Humans depicted are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Quirky entertainment to jump-start creativity. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews