Just Because - by Mac Barnett (Board Book)

Book Synopsis

"Charming, playful, and extraordinary imaginings will galvanize young minds to find inspired answers to their own questions." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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."

Review Quotes

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

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; and John's Turn, illustrated by Kate. 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 shape trilogy; and The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse, an E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winner. Mac Barnett lives in 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.