When Insatiable Curiosity Meets Relentless Knowledge

Debbie Glade reviews today’s picture book.

Question Boy Meets Little Miss Know-It-All ($17.99, Antheum, Ages 4 and up) written and illustrated by Peter Catalanotto, will make parents and teachers smile even more than the kids who read it. We parents are used to being asked question after question, and the boy in this book does just that – to the point where it becomes unbearable. Question Boy exhausts everyone in his town with his insatiable curiosity. But then one day he meets Little Miss-Now-It-All, who is full of fact after fact that she can’t keep inside (some true, some not so true). To learn how she handles Question Boy’s relentless questions, you’ll have to read the story yourself.  I promise you’ll have a good laugh at the end of the book.

Kids are going to love the fact that Question Boy is essentially a Super Hero, as are the many people in town he questions.  Readers will enjoy the vibrant watercolor illustrations and the way the story and illustrations remind them of a comic book.

I like that the book features a challenge – the showdown between Question Boy and Little Miss Know-It-All and that the boy who is full of questions and incessant energy really meets his match. There’s a lesson in that story. Read it with the child in your life, and you’re sure to figure it all out, being thoroughly entertained all the while.