Teaser Tuesday 1/3/17

Why Are There More Questions Than Answers, Grandad? ~ by Kenneth Mahood, 1974, children's, 10/10

This is a picture book, so the best way to "quote" it is by showing a picture.  The book is about a boy who asks too many questions and is given, by his badgered grandad, an overwhelming task to keep him quiet and out of mischief.  Poor Grandad carries an umbrella (see it on the cover?) to keep from being drenched from Sandy's unending questions.  It turns out that the red book in the attic really does have all the answers!  And here are some more "random" pages.

Click the images to enlarge them.  Sandy gave up on his Grandad's "impossible task" of having this huge room spic and span before dinner.  Instead of cleaning, he opened a large red book he had found.

In the book were "pictures of everything from ARKS to ZULUS, and a lot more besides."  Finding a parrot, Sandy began his usual questions.  "I wonder if parrots can really talk?"  Oh, yeah!  The parrot flew up out of the book saying, "Properly perspicacious parrots prattle perfectly."

And Paddy the parrot knew the book had the answer to Sandy's problem under CLEANING.  They dusted and vacuumed and one thing led to another, until (please excuse my adult language) all hell burst loose.  Soldiers arrived, but their cannon started a fire, which necessitated firemen, of course.

But the firemen flooded the place, and Grandad could be heard coming up the stairs.  Now what?  "It would take a magician to get me out of this!" moaned Sandy.  See the parrot opening the book to M for magician?

For Teaser Tuesday, we're supposed to share two “teaser” sentences from a random page in the book we are reading, without giving away any spoilers.  This is a children's book and preschoolers don't care about spoilers, since they love to read a book over and over and over again.  On the last page (notice that I'm giving you another spoiler), Grandad is the one asking the questions:

"How on earth did you do it? ... What was all that noise about? ... Did I hear shooting? ... Who was playing the violin? ... How did you move all that furniture? ... Where did that parrot come from? ... Did I hear a fire engine? ... Who were you talking to? ... Am I imagining things, Sandy?"  And Sandy tells him, "The answers are all in the book, Grandad!"

Now the surprise I found online.  Amazon has a "poor copy" for £490.00 in the UK, and AbeBooks has a copy for US$ 796.86 shipped from the UK (maybe the same book?) and two in "very good" condition for US$ 334.71 and US$ 15.38.  My copy, found in a free bin at a used book store several years ago, is in poor shape.  Some pages have been torn (but none ripped out), and the book was discarded from a library in Louisiana.  My cover is in good shape compared to the image above that I found online, with only bumped corners.  The pages could be taped back together, and all the words and pictures are there.  Neither of my libraries has a copy.  What would you pay to own this book?