THE BLUE POOL OF QUESTIONS

From Palestinian writer Abu-Alhayyat comes a lyrical tale of a strange man who is rejected by the people of the city but finds comfort in his curiosity.

With dried flowers, strange songs, and stacks of books that turn everything into questions, the odd man wanders through town. When the questions become a pool in the city streets, and then a lake, and then an ocean, the people are furious, confused and frightened. The cool blues, vibrant greens, warm reds, and haunting whites of the remarkable, angularly surreal illustrations make up a palette of deep, almost tangible emotion suitable to the story’s journey. Something inside the pool invites the man to come in, and the people of the city urge him to go. Inside the pool, the man finds the Answer, personified in the text but not corporeal in the illustrations. Everything is different, and he is no longer strange. The man and the Answer become friends, and they only know kindness and questions. Readers are encouraged “to ask more questions, throw them into the blue pool, be brave, and dive in.” The overt moral on the final page takes the tale in the direction of a legend, a tidy ending for this otherwise unusual story.

Deliciously confounding and deeply moving, this book is a work of art in pictures and words for adults and children alike.