#1000 of 1001 · April 27, 2023

Eternal life, Gentle Readers, is a subject that has fascinated human society for generations. Colin Thompson creates a delicate and profound meditation on the subject with How to Live Forever. The tale is set in a library with a thousand rooms containing every book ever written. At night, the books come to life, with characters and objects spilling out of the pages to form a bustling city. A young boy named Peter discovers a lost library card belonging to a book with the alluring title “How to Live Forever”, but the book is not in its proper place on the shelf. Intrigued by the mystery, Peter searches for two years. He finally locates the book in the possession of four ancient sages—envoys of the Ancient Child, a contradictory being frozen in time. The Ancient Child warns him that the book will drive him mad, granting him endless youth but locking him out of the world he knows. After much deliberation, Peter decides not to read it and returns home with his newfound understanding. With a thought-provoking text and his signature illustrations full of minuscule details and visual humor, Thompson offers a stirring treatise on the nature of aging and the human condition. #live #forever #library #eternal #youth #young #life #death #magic #book #books #childrensbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks