The Future Book

In another lively collaboration, Barnett and Harris (A Polar Bear in the Snow) offer up a funhouse-mirror picture book guide to the future. Told that the book was drafted in the by-and-by, readers learn that the to-come timeline is less about interplanetary travel and more about quirky behavioral and linguistic shifts. The sun is known as the moon, sneezes receive the response “Forgive me, Susan!,” and instead of giving verbal thanks, “we gently place a fish on another person’s head.” Relaying these seeming absurdities as self-evident facts, a docent-like narrator skips the whys behind the changes (“I have too many other things to tell you”), simply noting, “This was confusing at first, but now, in the future, we are used to it” and asking, “Wait, do you do... the thing with the fish, too? Or is that just something we do in the future?” Ink-and-gouache illustrations bring to mind an earnest first learning book that’s rendered in electric colors; the new terminology is often slapped on with DIY-style label-maker strips. Showing how customs without context may well feel arbitrary, it’s a solemnly silly look at social norms—and the authorities who decide them. Ages 4–8. Agent (for Barnett and Harris): Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.)