Review of Lavie Tidhar and Richard Watson’s The Children’s Book of the Future
By Sarah Wheeler
I never expected coffee table books for kids to be on my 2024 conversation card, but that’s exactly where Lavie Tidhar and Richard Watson’s The Children’s Book of the Future has landed me.
I went into this review expecting a picture book or an early reader-esq chapter book and found something entirely different. It felt so familiar —and not because I have been working at a school lately and reading children’s books is a common occurrence in my life. It looked, and in some ways read, exactly like books I have sitting on my own coffee table, and yet, it’s for children.
Tidhar, an award-winning science fiction and children’s writer, and Watson, a renowned futurist and author, set out to create a book that piques the interest of children who are interested in science, technology, the environment and conservation through optimistic futures that could possibly inspire a sense of “reclam[ation] of the future for current and future generations of children.”
Split into 4 sections: Earth; Life on Land and Sea; Welcome to the Solar System; and The Far Future, the techno-centric enthusiasm was palpable. These sections are comprised of a series of vignettes accompanied by “science spotlights,” that are a mini-collections of the research and scan hits that informed them. You can find mention of myriad concepts sprinkled throughout these brief depictions of possible futures, anything from biomimicry to printing food to deep sea living or the absence of earth in its entirety.
In my own work, I often find myself struggling with trade-offs of vignettes versus scenarios or longer format writing. By design, the creative flexibility and story-like nature of a vignette lends itself more naturally to literary pursuits but its limited length can leave it feeling rushed and cramped. I imagine Tidhar and Watson engaged in similar debate when exploring formats for this book.
Navigating the ratio of informative research, descriptive and evocative story-telling, and withering attention spans is a high wire we’re undoubtedly all familiar with — and in the end we all make a choice. For Tidhar and Watson, it seems they went towards breadth rather than depth.
The collection of vignettes allows the authors to cover a range of topics with the trade-off of thorough plot development. There's not enough story or world building to truly lose yourself in. Aside from a few minor references to something mentioned in an earlier story, each chapter is a stand-alone story of a future. You can pick up and start at any point and not be any more confused than if you had started from the beginning. So, for a child who is drawn towards in-depth character and plot development, The Children’s Book of the Future may not be their first pick. That’s not to say it doesn’t merit consideration for a place on their book sh… er… coffee table.
While Tidhar and Watson might have gone for a breadth of topics, its simplicity is deceptive.
If my experience is any indication, with every reading, new details in the text or images will be discovered and provoking new questions about the futures the authors put forth will emerge and evolve. These questions won’t be simple from a humanities and/or technological standpoint either.
THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTIONS
The authors sprinkle thought provoking questions throughout the Science Spotlights that accompany each story. These spotlights explore different topics, questions, ideas, and technologies that could be pushing us towards the future described, or possible results and concerns of those futures. The writers utilize existing and emerging technologies and they don’t hold their punches on some of the concepts they’re willing to introduce. The stories are rooted in innovations and technologies such as the Internet of Things, hydroponics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), or biomimicry.
To help with some of the potential questions, there’s a brief glossary that explains some of the terms used in the book — which are italicized in the text to indicate terms that appear in the glossary. A wonderful addition, and while the internet is only a click away, it would have been nice to see a wider selection of terms and slightly more in depth definitions. Along the same lines, I found the lack of a works cited or further reading section disappointing. While the Science Spotlights tied in some of the research that undoubtedly shaped the stories, there were many times in my discussion with the children I shared this book with, that I wish the book provided something more concrete to point at to aid in addressing their quandaries and where they could look for more information on the bits that interested them. I encountered challenges and I’m pursuing a masters in foresight, I can only imagine the difficulty and confusion a teacher or parent might have in trying to navigate this landscape. Tidhar and Watson, if you read this, discussion questions, or a “guide for the ‘guides“ might not be a bad supplementation!
REPRESENTATIVE NARRATIVES
There was intentionality in the pursuit of representative narratives. A fear that it would be gratuitous or disingenuously done was softened as I experienced its subtlety. Weaving different countries, cultures, and languages into the different futures through gentle nods like a child named Yi-Sheng moving to the moon or an airship cat having a Chichewan name (Mkango) or scene setting describing the Mekong River, monks, and solar powered tuk-tuks.
These efforts felt more natural than performative, allowing the future to be at the forefront of the story and representation to exist more organically within the narrative.
Now, while I celebrate the effort and relative success of representation The Children’s Book of the Future achieves, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that we still need to be pushing for more in terms of what we mean and accept with pursuing diverse representations. There were certain components that were notably missing for me, one of which is the lack of disability representation. Techno-centric futures can often experience a rub when it comes to disability; sometimes it seems disability is only addressed as a problem technology and innovation will be able to eliminate. While I acknowledge the future of disability is rife with debate, it’s imperative that when we’re producing material for children, especially material that’s designed to evoke optimism and arguably hope, that we’re conscientious of the hope that we’re trying imbue them with in relation to what they experience now and what the future realities they’ll most likely face will reasonably look like.
Another is realistic economic achievement of, or access to, aspects of these futures, if not the future in its entirety. Will these images of the future appear more as mythical realities that are unobtainable to them, or will they truly be inspirational in driving a sense of agency and pathway thinking towards imagining (and hopefully realizing) more optimistic futures for themselves and their communities?
TOUGH QUESTIONS
Questioning along the same lines was, surprisingly to me, expressed by the children with whom I shared this book — Dempsey (10), Aleesa(10), and Grace (10).
I was not expecting them to be so critical of the book or for the techno-optimism of these futures to create a sort of cognitive dissonance for them. They found many of the ideas and technologies put forth intriguing, but the excitement and interest was matched almost one for one with push back and questions. They struggled with what the stories were presenting, asking how anything they saw would even be possible, or yearning for understanding of how we got “there.”
The optimism the authors were so intentional in creating stuck out and almost made the futures less believable (without further in-depth discussion) for some of the kids. More than once I heard them say things such as “that would be so cool but it’s not going to happen,” “that won’t happen until way after we’re dead,” or more pessimistically “this is unrealistic, we know the world is going to burn.”
Only seeing positive images made it seem more unrealistic for some of them which seems contrary to all the things our community is pushing towards at the moment. In futures, a conversation about hopeful and optimistic futures is only ever a stone throw away. But if we’re gearing these stories to children, especially older children, they’re learning enough about the world to question the realism of something so bright and positive.
Without “a reality check” or clear[er] pathways to how it will come about, they might be more likely to see it as magical thinking of a fantastical future than one that’s really within grasp for their lifetime.
It’s an incredibly difficult line to walk, and arguably even harder when it comes to writing something for our children. Optimism and hope are important, and we do ourselves and our children a disservice when we don’t acknowledge the complexities, ethics, and challenges of life and their impacts.
UNCOVERING POTENTIAL
Balancing hope and excitement with consequence or responsibility or choice – what level is appropriate for children? When do we push and when do we back off? Questions we ask ourselves every day when trying to navigate raising the next generations. It’s no easy task and we’ll never have the right answer, but it’s prompted me to wonder if teaching and creating a sense of agency is as, or more crucial, than creating optimistic images.
While I personally found the over-emphasis on optimism a little off-putting, my chief feeling upon reading the last page is both a compliment to the authors and a critique — I found myself wanting more from the book. To crave more can mean it was a wonderful thing, but it can also mean you’re full but not satisfied. Both myself and the children who read this wanted more discussion, more to each vignette, more answers. And this might be the true potential of this book and an invitation to the authors if they’re considering future books to complement this one. One child wanted more story from the book, one added the title to her Apple watch so she could buy it after its release on July 2 of this year, and one found it to be highly improbable given the world’s ‘current state of affairs’.
And I think that’s an accurate representation of how this book will land. It won’t be intriguing or enough for some, it will be too far-fetched for others, and it will be intriguing for the rest.
What did come as a surprise was that they all felt like it was geared towards younger children even though they fell into the 8+ age range. I would attribute that to it’s not quite a picture book, not quite a real book style. As a coffee table style book, it’s excellent. Being able to pick it up, choose a random page, read one or two stories, and possibly have a discussion — delightful, novel, appropriately engrossing without being mentally burdensome. It does what it set out to do, relatively well. It’s an optimistic set of brief descriptions of possible futures that are rooted in scientific and technological innovation.
While it’s not the first book I would recommend if you were to embark upon teaching children how to do futures work — it is one I would use to spark discussion, to tango with thinking about the future differently. This impact would be amplified when the book is in the hands of a child who has access to an adult versed in the field to help them understand and work through the tough questions they’re bound to ask — and someone to ask them the tough questions they need to learn to ask, such as:
Who’s left out of this story?
Who would be harmed by these choices?
What is lost if we go in this direction?
Who will push back against this path?
What might be someone’s motive in pushing for this narrative?
There’s opportunity to pose some provocative ethical and humanitarian questions that could challenge the way a child looks at, and considers technological innovation, and more importantly for all of us, the role their choices surrounding these plays for their future.
Be prepared for hard questions, questions you can’t answer and the opportunity to show that hope and positive futures can co-exist with the challenges we face when building them.
Maybe, that’s what this book does best — it leads to tough questions — the kind we hope our children will ask about their future.
Special thanks to Dempsey, Aleesa, and Grace for exploring the future with me.
Sarah Wheeler is currently working at a private school and pursuing her MS in Foresight at the University of Houston. Her background includes experience in sales, marketing, research, child development, and education.
As a futurist, Sarah is passionate about exploring and transforming the emotional and psychological experience of engaging with potential change and possibilities. Her research bridges criminal justice, education, and sexual and gender diversity, delving into their intersections and broader implications.
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