David Baddiel's Future Friend revealed by HarperCollins

HarperCollins Children’s Books has revealed details of Future Friend, the “out of this world” new book from David Baddiel, with illustrations by Steven Lenton.

Released on 15th October in hardback and e-book, and with an audio edition voiced by the comedian, the book is a “terrifically entertaining time-slip adventure that combines action, laugh-out-loud humour and the importance of friendship in a story that imagines what it might be like if your best friend came from the future”.

The blurb explains: “When Pip propels into our world from 3020, she foretells a future where out-of-control climate change and mysterious viruses keep everyone inside. When she befriends child inventor genius Rahul, they join forces to get her back to her own time and — maybe — save the future. Delivering all the classic ingredients of David’s bestselling fiction, in a filmic wish-fulfilment fantasy that will appeal to children everywhere, it is an epic comic adventure of time travel, talking animals and two best friends who work together to save the future.”

Since entering the children's book market in 2014, Baddiel has sold 1.5 million books for £7.6m through Nielsen BookScan, with first title The Parent Agency (HarperCollins Children's Books) his bestseller at 284,860 copies sold in paperback. His children's titles have been translated into 29 languages and The Parent Agency has been optioned for film by Fox.

He said: “Future Friend is my first foray into science fiction, although strangely the world of 3020 may turn out to have a lot of resonances for children right now. It’s a story about time travel, amazing gadgets, robot clones, conspiracy theorists, animals that have evolved to speak and what it would be like to have a computer chip in your brain that means you can answer any question a teacher could ever ask. But really, it's a tale about friendship."

Executive publisher Ann-Janine Murtagh added: “We are so proud to be publishing David Baddiel’s seventh story for children this autumn and what an incredible novel it is. In Future Friend David has written a thrilling but also prescient and resonant novel that is almost uncanny in its imagining of a future world. The imagination of an author sometimes precedes reality and in this gloriously fast-paced and funny novel, David offers a window into a future world with a hopeful and optimistic vision of change that puts the children in charge of building a better future. David’s readers always delight in his hyper-real filmic fantasies and in Future Friend his audacious storytelling is sure to take him to new heights. This is a stand-out story set to be a classic.”