Big Questions from Little People: And Simple Answers from Great Minds

In the spirit of Schott’s Miscellany, The Magic of Reality, and The Dangerous Book for Boys comes Can a Bee Sting a Bee?—a smart, illuminating, essential, and utterly delightful handbook for perplexed parents and their curious children. Author Gemma Elwin Harris has lovingly compiled weighty questions from precocious grade school children—queries that have long dumbfounded even intelligent adults—and she’s gathered together a notable crew of scientists, specialists, philosophers, and writers to answer them.

Authors Mary Roach and Phillip Pullman, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, chef Gordon Ramsay, adventurist Bear Gryllis, and linguist Noam Chomsky are among the top experts responding to the Big Questions from Little People, (“Do animals have feelings?”, “Why can’t I tickle myself?”, “Who is God?”) with well-known comedians, columnists, and raconteurs offering hilarious alternative answers. Miles above your average general knowledge and trivia collections, this charming compendium is a book fans of the E.H. Gombrich classic, A Little History of the World, will adore.

Illuminating and essential, Big Questions from Little People is a timeless gift, a handbook for curious children and their perplexed parents.

Many of the questions children ask in the course of growing up can stump even the best educated adult: Why can't I tickle myself? Are we all related? Who named all the cities? Do aliens exist? What makes me me? Is it okay to eat a worm? Who invented chocolate? If the universe started from nothing, how did it become something? How do you fall in love? Who is God? How do chefs get ideas for recipes? Why are some people mean?

This charming and informative collection has been compiled from schoolchildren's actual questions, which are answered by the world's greatest experts, including Mary Roach, Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, Bear Grylls, David Eagleman, Philippa Gregory, Noam Chomsky, and Mario Batali.

“Certain to give you pause about much of what you thought you knew, or at the very least rekindle that childlike curiosity about and awe at the basic fabric of the world we live in.” - BrainPickings

“After reading Big Questions . . . I was reminded of the limitless range of my own ignorance. The things most people don’t know you could put in a book. . . . ‘Questions answered’ and ‘Simple guides to...’ books are nothing new in children’s publishing but the appeal here is the entertaining experts. There are some seriously big brains on hand—including Sir David Attenborough, Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky and Miranda Hart—to answer 100 questions from children.” - Telegraph