El libro del futuro (The Book of the Future)

El libro del futuro (The Book of the Future)

El Libro del Futuro (The book from the future) is an ingenious twist on a variety of genres and activities, including colouring books, scrapbooks, factbooks, and time-travel narratives. Essentially, it is a guide to making your own time capsule, with a narrative twist. The premise is simple- the book has been sent to you, the reader, by your future self, who for some reason has forgotten many of the details of their (i.e. your) childhood. So, your future self explains, you have sent the book back in time (time travel is common in this imaginary future) to your younger self so that you can help yourself remember what you were once like. After the first few pages it becomes clear that this is an interactive book, in which the reader is invited to write things down, draw pictures, stick in photos and clippings, complete timelines and make predictions about the future. The idea is that, once completed, it will appear in the future and the future self will be able to remember what they have forgotten. Of course, the intention is that it is kept for the reader to look at when they are an adult.

The cartoonish illustrations, by Maria Ramos, are colourful, crisp and clear, and highly engaging, never occupying too much space on the page in a way that might inhibit the reader's own creativity. The graphic design is meticulous, everything down to the colour scheme has been thought through in a way that makes it appealing and easy to get lost in. Dealing as it does with things like family, social life and history, it has many timeless elements, which are combined with highly contemporary features, such as an amusing and judicious use of emojis. The use and varieties of font size, style and colour are another exciting addition, making the book more exciting, as well as easy to navigate and more inclusive for slower or less advanced readers.

The book also gently introduces some more grown-up concepts, such as regret, keeping secrets and privacy, in a way that is appropriate while also relevant to the book's overall theme, and give it an added poignancy that takes it way beyond being a simple activity book.

Suitability for acquisition/translation: El Libro del Futuro is a highly engaging, entertaining, varied, and beautifully produced book with potentially wide appeal. Older and more independent children will enjoy getting on with the story, as it were, and the range of different writing and drawing activities, especially the more complex and imaginative ones. Younger children and their parents will enjoy going through it together and discussing the ideas and presented. Both groups will be invested in the time capsule idea. The concept is more or less universally understandable, and there are essentially no elements of this book that wouldn't come across quite easily in any given language/culture. Most importantly, it manages to be both a kind of meta-fictional sci-fi story, and a genuinely imaginative activity book. What's more, if the children enjoying El Libro del Futuro genuinely follow the instructions, waiting fifteen years to look at the book again, it could prove to be a meaningful, moving experience.

From the reader´s report by Rahul Bery