What Is It For?

What Is It For?

José Maria Vieira Mendes & Madalena Matoso

Original Title
Para que serve?
Published
Planeta Tangerina, 2020
Genre
Picture books
Pages
64
Rights Sold
Basque
Catalan
Dutch
English
French
Italian
Korean
Spanish
Simplified Chinese
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What Is It For?

José Maria Vieira Mendes & Madalena Matoso

This book likes to ask questions.
This book prefers a world full of questions than a world with definitive answers.
Deep inside, this book likes some mess and asks questions because it knows they will stir up the world (and the world without some mess or mysteries is a sad and boring world).

Instead of giving answers, this book asks questions to questions.
Especially to those questions that apear more often.
How can you do that?
And what for?
Good question(s).

Click here to view a digital exhibition of original illustrations from the book!

000
Awards
Bologna Ragazzi Award - Non Fiction, Special mention 2022

Recommended — Portuguese National Reading Plan

White Ravens 2021

This is an unusual and quite brilliant book – simple, intelligent, surprising, playful and deft in bringing its basic idea to readers. »What is this for?« is a question whose meaning and use few people probably ever reflect on – but it’s the focus here. Some things one just knows how to use, like a pair of scissors or a key. In other cases, something’s name reveals its purpose, such as a corkscrew or a toothbrush. A cell phone is one of those things that has many functions. And then there are things that serve many unexpected functions, as well as others whose function seems so self-evident no one would care or dare to ask: a human being, a rhinoceros, or sleep, for instance. This entertaining book inspires one to think about objects, functions, and language. Its idea and text bring it to life along with vibrant, brightly-coloured illustrations that entice readers to leaf through the pages again and again. (Age: 7+)

Are there things that have no use? What’s the use of a painting or a rhinoceros? Does something have to be useful to have a use? Every few pages, the unnamed narrator recaps the questions and resolutions discussed up until then. Kids will enjoy answering the questions and the discussions that may ensue because of them. The candy-colored illustrations are arresting and fun to look at. The kaleidoscopic landscapes and figures bring to mind Byron Barton’s artwork. The figures are childlike, with some characters having rectangles for bodies and others having orange, yellow, or purple skin tones. VERDICT Perfect as a read-aloud or for imagination stretching, this quirky book will make for rich discussions and mind-blowing conclusions. –Shelley M. Diaz, School Library Journal