Curious minds are rewarded with curious answers in a fantastical bedtime book by Mac Barnett and Isabelle Arsenault.Why is the ocean blue? What is the rain? What happened to the dinosaurs? It might be time for bed, but one child is too full of questions about the world to go to sleep just yet. Little ones and their parents will be charmed and delighted as a patient father offers up increasingly creative responses to his child’s nighttime wonderings. Any child who has ever asked “Why?” — and any parent who has attempted an explanation — will recognize themselves in this sweet storybook for dreamers who are looking for answers beyond “Just because.”
On sale: September 10, 2019
Age: 4-8 years
Grade: Preschool - 3
Page count: 40 Pages
ISBN: 9780763696801
Mac Barnett, the 2025–2026 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is a
New York Times best-selling author of stories for children. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages and sold more than five million copies worldwide. Mac Barnett’s books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three
New York Times/ New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Awards, three E. B. White Read-Aloud Awards, the
Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Germany’s Jugendliteraturpreis, China’s Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Award, the Netherlands’ Zilveren Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Orbil. He is the cocreator, with Jon Klassen, of the Substack
Looking at Picture Books, as well as
Shape Island, a stop-motion animated series on Apple TV+, based on their best-selling Shapes series of picture books. Mac Barnett lives in Oakland, California.
Isabelle Arsenault is the creator of
Alpha and the illustrator of several other picture books, including
Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt, a
New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year;
Captain Rosalie by Timothée de Fombelle; and
Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky. Isabelle Arsenault lives in Montreal.
The exacting, exquisite phrasing electrifies readers, and full-bleed illustrations pull them into an extraordinary alternate universe...Matte paper, flat colors, conventional & typesetting, and a mid-20th-century look to the light-skinned people conjure a retro feel, allowing the unexpected, original answers to stand out even more. Charming, playful, and extraordinary imaginings will galvanize young minds to find inspired answers to their own questions.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Arsenault’s strikingly detailed artwork depicts the bedroom scenes in grays, blacks, and soft whites...A charming celebration of bedtime rituals and parent-child affection, this book also underscores the importance of fostering imagination and wonderment while nurturing young minds.
—School Library Journal (starred review)
Barnett (
The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown) offers a comic look at that famous childhood bedtime-delaying tactic, the difficult question...Arsenault’s imaginative power enhances a thin, nevertheless enjoyable, text.
—Publishers Weekly
This is a clever launch pad for curious children and adults. The large trim size and double pages done in gouache, pencil, and watercolor, assembled digitally, are replete with details both realistic and fanciful.
—Booklist
