PAGES : Arming Yourself With Answers

And now for today’s truly cosmic questions: What makes popcorn pop? Where does the water go when you flush the toilet? Why do people die? How do they get the stripes in toothpaste?

To children, anyway, these are the pressing mysteries of the universe. Any parent who has tried to unravel such perplexities as “do worms have blood?” can attest to the ceaseless--no, make that relentless--curiosity of the younger members of the human race.

But while many of us, foolishly, were turning to our backgrounds in biology, theology and various other “ologies,” it took a professor of bookology to, literally, write the book on the subject.

A bookologist, lest you wonder, is a doctor who diagnoses reading questions and writes prescriptions for the appropriate books. As it happens, E.A. Hass--a.k.a. Dr. Rita Book--is the world’s only bookologist.

“Big Questions Little Kids Ask” is Dr. Book’s noble attempt to help save the sanity of parents of preschoolers. It is published by Avon and includes toddler-tested explanations about “stuff in the sky,” nature, animals and other living things, how things work and that ever-fascinating topic, people’s bodies.