WHAT WILL I DISCOVER?

Scientists know a lot, but there is still so much more in the universe for a child to wonder about and learn.

A curious, round-eyed, brown-skinned child muses on the wealth of surprising discoveries scientists have made, citing fascinating examples such as sea stars’ tube feet, macaws’ tongue-bones, and emperor penguins’ highly social behavior. Looking closely at fossils, remotely into space, and microscopically at nerve cells’ communication, scientists know so much about this and distant worlds! But then the narrator, with notepad and magnifying glass, thinks of questions not yet answered: the why of humpback whales’ varied songs, the how of tree-root communication, the mystery of dinosaur languages and games—and, the biggest question of all, the titular one. Short, simple sentences are presented in a legible sans-serif font. The entrancing, clear-edged but lineless, warm, uncluttered illustrations include jungle and desert scenes, seascapes, animals, planets, dinosaurs, and neurons and will reach readers whether in laps or classrooms. A final page asks readers to search back through the pages for 10 tiny images and, like the entire book, enthusiastically endorses “investigating, inventing, or creating” as essential qualities for scientists. The adult scientists depicted are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Celebrating intellectual curiosity, this book invites young readers to quest for answers.