Mike Rampton and Guilherme Karsten: Why we should ask questions!
About Author
Discover the importance of asking questions in the fact-tastique Why There is No Such Thing as a Silly Question!
Mike Rampton is an author and journalist who lives in a nice village near Cambridge with his wife and daughter. He often has a pen behind his ear because he thinks it makes him look clever and busy, and he knows a very good song about dinosaurs.
Guilherme Karsten lives in Blumenau, in southern Brazil. In 2010, he won a national contest for new children's book illustrators and has been working on illustrations ever since. After illustrating many books for other authors, Guilherme started writing his own books in 2017.
Interview
Discover why there is No Such Thing as a Silly Question
October 2024
Mike Rampton and illustrator Guilherme Karsten introduce their book about the things children ask, and explore why it's important that we all ask questions! Their new book, There is No Such Thing as a Silly Question, fact-checked by the University of Cambridge, proves that every question deserves an answer.
Q&A with Mike Rampton and Guilherme Karsten: The questions children ask
My hope is that this book will inspire both kids and adults to ask, ask and ask, and find things out
that they would otherwise have never known.
1. Can you tell us a little about yourself, where you live, favourite things to do and what you don't like doing, and what brought you into creating children's books?
Mike: I live in a nice village just outside Cambridge. I'm quite scruffy and spend a lot of time indoors. There's No Such Thing As A Silly Question is my first book for children, and I wish I had started writing children's books sooner, as it's so much fun. It's what I always wanted to do when I grew up, but I fell into a few other jobs for a while. When not working on ideas for exciting future books, I like running, cycling and pointing at really old things then going on at my daughter about how old they are for ages.
Guilherme: I live in Blumenau, a city in southern Brazil, and it's a peaceful place that's surrounded by nature, which I love. My favourite things to do include drawing, of course, but also spending time with my family, especially my kids, who are a constant source of inspiration for my stories. I also enjoy playing sports, travelling, and reading books. One thing I don't like very much is dealing with overly complicated paperwork - I'm much more of a creative thinker!
2. What is your new book, There's No Such Thing as a Silly Question, about? What kinds of things will readers learn from it?
Mike: This book is about SO MUCH STUFF! It's a collection of questions - from "Why are there so many types of dog?" to "Do I really need all these toes?" - that you've either always wondered about, deep in the recesses of your mind, or that once you hear, you immediately want to know the answer to. Have you ever wondered how knights in armour went to the toilet, or why your fingers go wrinkly in the bath?
3. What inspired you to write a book of questions? And how is it organised?
Mike: My daughter asks a lot of questions, and a few years ago, when she was three or four, she asked me one I'd never heard before: do spiders ever run out of web? I realised I didn't know the answer, but immediately really wanted to. I did some research and found out spiders often eat bits of web they don't need anymore, and this seemed like knowledge too interesting not to share. It all went from there.
In terms of organisation, while most spreads have a bit of a theme connecting all the questions on them, beyond that there's no real structure, so every time you turn the page you're in for a surprise.
4. Guilherme, why did you want to illustrate it? How did you decide to approach the illustrations and especially to bring out the humour in the questions?
Guilherme: The questions - and the answers - were playful and naturally connected with my illustration style, which made me excited to take on the project. I knew I could bring humour to life through exaggerated expressions, bold colours, and little unexpected details that would make readers smile. Additionally, the stamp of quality from the University of Cambridge was a key factor that made me believe in the project and trust that it would be a meaningful and well-researched piece of work.
5. Where did you find all these questions - have children asked them? Or do strange questions tend to pop into your head?
Mike: The questions came from all over the place. Some came from my daughter and other kids I know, while others were things I had always quietly wondered about. Questions pop into my head all the time, although a lot of them are along the lines of, "What would happen if I ate that?"
6. What was the most surprising question in the book for you, and the funniest?
Mike: In terms of surprise, I had no idea so many creatures had odd numbers of eyes. I presumed everything other than spiders had two eyes, and it was as simple as that. No! There's a lot more going on! And I found the complex nature of dogs' bottoms very funny - a surprising amount of serious academic research has been done into why they smell each other's bums.
Guilherme: The most surprising question for me was, "How many people are in the sky right now?" It's such an unexpected way of thinking about something we don't often consider, and it really made me pause and reflect on the answer. As for the funniest, it was definitely "Can animals commit crimes?" That one gave me so many ideas for hilarious illustrations of mischievous animals getting up to no good, which made the whole process even more fun!
7. Which one did you enjoy finding out the most about? And how do we know your answers are correct?
Mike: I read countless books, articles and academic papers researching this book, and provided academic or journalistic references for everything in it. There are 100-word answers that involved weeks of reading, thinking, writing and re-writing. There is a spread about colours that took SO MUCH WORK, because every time I thought I understood something a little bit more, I would realise I'd misunderstood something earlier. I loved learning about why elephants can't jump, the different ways animals are more intelligent than humans, and what dung beetles see in poo that we don't. Amazingly, everything I wrote was read and fact-checked by experts at the University of Cambridge, who were very patient with me if I'd managed to get myself totally confused.
Guilherme: One of the questions I enjoyed the most was, "How do you know if you are at the North and South Poles?" It's such a fascinating and unique concept to explore visually. To research these questions, I often start by using Google to gather information from reliable sources, then I dive deeper into specific topics if needed. While I make sure the facts are accurate, my focus is also on presenting the answers in a way that sparks curiosity and imagination, blending research with creativity.
8. What do you hope the book will inspire among its readers?
Mike: I think curiosity is a really important trait to have, and that sometimes people feel embarrassed or self-conscious asking questions. But if we don't ask, how will we ever learn? My hope is that this book will inspire both kids and adults to ask, ask and ask, and find things out that they would otherwise have never known.
Guilherme: I hope this book inspires children to be curious and never stop asking questions. Curiosity is such a powerful tool for learning and discovering the world. I also hope it encourages them to see humour and wonder in the everyday things around them and that it brings families closer as they explore the answers together. Reading should be a playful, shared experience.
9. Do you have another book of questions planned? What are you working on currently?
Mike: I am working on a few more non-fiction books which are coming out over the next couple of years, including another one with Nosy Crow and the University of Cambridge. I have also just started working on what I hope will end up as a funny novel for kids. I would love to do a follow-up book of questions and answers, especially if it meant working with Guilherme again, as his illustrations for There's No Such Thing As A Silly Question are so fantastic.
Guilherme: Right now, I'm working on a collection of books for babies, which has been a lot of fun. I'm also developing a new project for Nosy Crow, and I'm excited to see where it leads. There's always something new on the horizon, and I love the challenge of creating stories and illustrations that connect with young readers in different ways.
10. Creative Challenge: How can we help inspire children to ask more questions?
Mike: Something fun you can do is just look at the room around you - you've seen it hundreds of times, but try to look at it in a different way and see each part of it like you've never seen it before. If you're in a classroom, for instance, here are a few thoughts:
How is glass see-through? Who decided on the size and shape of doors? What are there more of in the world: shoes or socks? Why are so many pencils hexagonal? Why is A4 paper called A4, and who decided that? Why are school hours different to most adults' working hours?
Try to think of a question about something you see every day but have never thought about. A warning, though: once you start asking these things - especially "why?" - it can be hard to stop.
Guilherme: A fun challenge would be for a class to come up with one big, silly question - something like "What would happen if animals could talk?" - and have them work together to imagine the answer. Each student could contribute an idea or illustration of how they think the world would look with talking animals. They could then present their collective findings as a big group project. This not only encourages curiosity but also fosters collaboration and creative thinking.
University of Cambridge: There's No Such Thing as a Silly Question: 213 Weird Questions, Expertly Answered!
