diff --git a/parquet/src/file/metadata/writer.rs b/parquet/src/file/metadata/writer.rs
index 3573e3020e5c..dad960790e6c 100644
--- a/parquet/src/file/metadata/writer.rs
+++ b/parquet/src/file/metadata/writer.rs
@@ -450,19 +450,57 @@ mod tests {
             true,
         )]));
 
-        let a: ArrayRef = Arc::new(Int32Array::from(vec![Some(1), None, Some(2)]));
+        // build row groups / pages that exercise different combinations of nulls and values
+        // note that below we set the row group and page sizes to 4 and 2 respectively
+        // so that these "groupings" make sense
+        let a: ArrayRef = Arc::new(Int32Array::from(vec![
+            // a row group that has all values
+            Some(i32::MIN),
+            Some(-1),
+            Some(1),
+            Some(i32::MAX),
+            // a row group with a page of all nulls and a page of all values
+            None,
+            None,
+            Some(2),
+            Some(3),
+            // a row group that has all null pages
+            None,
+            None,
+            None,
+            None,
+            // a row group having 1 page with all values and 1 page with some nulls
+            Some(4),
+            Some(5),
+            None,
+            Some(6),
+            // a row group having 1 page with all nulls and 1 page with some nulls
+            None,
+            None,
+            Some(7),
+            None,
+            // a row group having all pages with some nulls
+            None,
+            Some(8),
+            Some(9),
+            None,
+        ]));
 
         let batch = RecordBatch::try_from_iter(vec![("a", a)]).unwrap();
 
-        let writer_props = match write_page_index {
-            true => WriterProperties::builder()
-                .set_statistics_enabled(EnabledStatistics::Page)
-                .build(),
-            false => WriterProperties::builder()
-                .set_statistics_enabled(EnabledStatistics::Chunk)
-                .build(),
+        let writer_props_builder = match write_page_index {
+            true => WriterProperties::builder().set_statistics_enabled(EnabledStatistics::Page),
+            false => WriterProperties::builder().set_statistics_enabled(EnabledStatistics::Chunk),
         };
 
+        // tune the size or pages to the data above
+        // to make sure we exercise code paths where all items in a page are null, etc.
+        let writer_props = writer_props_builder
+            .set_max_row_group_size(4)
+            .set_data_page_row_count_limit(2)
+            .set_write_batch_size(2)
+            .build();
+
         let mut writer = ArrowWriter::try_new(&mut buf, schema, Some(writer_props)).unwrap();
         writer.write(&batch).unwrap();
         writer.close().unwrap();
@@ -610,6 +648,29 @@ mod tests {
             decoded_metadata.num_row_groups()
         );
 
+        // check that the mins and maxes are what we expect for each page
+        // also indirectly checking that the pages were written out as we expected them to be laid out
+        // (if they're not, or something gets refactored in the future that breaks that assumption,
+        // this test may have to drop down to a lower level and create metadata directly instead of relying on
+        // writing an entire file)
+        let column_indexes = metadata.metadata.column_index().unwrap();
+        assert_eq!(column_indexes.len(), 6);
+        // make sure each row group has 2 pages by checking the first column
+        // page counts for each column for each row group, should all be the same and there should be
+        // 12 pages in total across 6 row groups / 1 column
+        let mut page_counts = vec![];
+        for row_group in column_indexes {
+            for column in row_group {
+                match column {
+                    Index::INT32(column_index) => {
+                        page_counts.push(column_index.indexes.len());
+                    }
+                    _ => panic!("unexpected column index type"),
+                }
+            }
+        }
+        assert_eq!(page_counts, vec![2; 6]);
+
         metadata
             .metadata
             .row_groups()
diff --git a/parquet/src/file/page_index/index.rs b/parquet/src/file/page_index/index.rs
index 662ba45621ab..2f30abead25c 100644
--- a/parquet/src/file/page_index/index.rs
+++ b/parquet/src/file/page_index/index.rs
@@ -230,16 +230,14 @@ impl<T: ParquetValueType> NativeIndex<T> {
         let min_values = self
             .indexes
             .iter()
-            .map(|x| x.min_bytes().map(|x| x.to_vec()))
-            .collect::<Option<Vec<_>>>()
-            .unwrap_or_else(|| vec![vec![]; self.indexes.len()]);
+            .map(|x| x.min_bytes().unwrap_or(&[]).to_vec())
+            .collect::<Vec<_>>();
 
         let max_values = self
             .indexes
             .iter()
-            .map(|x| x.max_bytes().map(|x| x.to_vec()))
-            .collect::<Option<Vec<_>>>()
-            .unwrap_or_else(|| vec![vec![]; self.indexes.len()]);
+            .map(|x| x.max_bytes().unwrap_or(&[]).to_vec())
+            .collect::<Vec<_>>();
 
         let null_counts = self
             .indexes