British author Robert Macfarlane is forever branching out, which feels right for someone who is widely acclaimed for his works about nature and has often taken deep inspiration from trees. Indeed, both trees and the forest feature in his new picture book The World to Come, co-written with actor and musician Johnny Flynn, as well as in a forthcoming trio of titles in a deal Macfarlane has just inked with Magic Cat.
The World to Come, out today from Magic Cat, and illustrated by Emily Sutton, explores the passage of time, cycles of the seasons, and wonders in the natural world. “This book grew from a song which grew from an image which grew from a tree: a birch tree, in fact, from the branches of which I saw a blackbird singing ‘against the rising dark’ in the first days of the first pandemic lockdown,” Macfarlane told PW. To put that imagery into words, Macfarlane found an enthusiastic collaborator in Flynn.
“Rob and I have been friends for years and have taken on lots of small projects with each other but always talked about doing something bigger,” Flynn said. “When the lockdown happened, we called each other up,” he said. “Both of our work obligations had kind of vanished—his teaching and my touring and filming and stage stuff—and we decided it was the right time.”
The writing soon fell into flow for the duo. “Although Rob isn’t a musician, he loves the form of songs,” Flynn said. “We wrote The World to Come originally as lyrics, partly rooted in the ancient cedar wood forest of Gilgamesh, and partly inspired by my walks through the Hackney marshes, when my son and I would meditate by the River Lea.”
And due to the unique circumstances that served as a backdrop for the project, it took on additional significance for the creators. “Making music with Johnny in that time was both a joy and a lifeline,” Macfarlane said. “It became central to my ability to stay sane and retain wonder amid the chaos, and I feel that sense of hope and possibility infuses the song ‘The World to Come.’ ”
The musical album on which the tune appears, Lost in the Cedar Wood, was released in May 2021, and Magic Cat’s co-founder and publisher Jenny Broom was among the record’s early fans. “I’d devoured both Robert’s writing and Johnny’s music independently and it was amazing to me to discover this collaboration,” Broom said. “Instantly, the song became our household go-to at the end of every day, helping to segment working day from yet another evening in. After some months of obsessive listening, I was out walking, the lyrics rolling over in my brain, and I literally saw the book in my mind’s eye,” she noted. That a-ha moment compelled her to write to Macfarlane via every channel she could think of. “And to my astonishment, he replied,” she said. “I will always think of this as one of the best pieces of luck that I will ever enjoy.”
The authors were very keen on doing a picture book adaptation. “We both thought it was a brilliant idea because it’s about a future that belongs to children,” Flynn said. Macfarlane added, “The song was already a story, we realized; what truly transformed its passage into picture book was, of course, the addition of a third artistic dimension in the form of Emily Sutton’s gloriously vivid art.” Both Flynn and Macfarlane praised Sutton’s skillful use of color to bring new tempos and additional vibrancy to the rhythmic text.
Following The World to Come, readers can expect to see more Macfarlane titles from Magic Cat. Three additional books, illustrated by Luke Adam Walker, are in the works. The initial volume, Glow Worm, is set for an October 2025 release. According to Macfarlane, it tells the story of a girl who “seeks light in the darkest and coldest of times—and begins to find and gather it from unexpected sources in the forest.”
It’s the first in the Night Creatures trilogy of thematically related books, each focusing on a different nocturnal creature and partly taking place in darkness. “I am intensely excited about this,” Macfarlane told PW. “Luke’s talents as a drawer-engraver-etcher are just off-the-scale extraordinary. He has an exceptional sense of how language and image radiate together to create a luminosity that is brighter than the sum of their parts.”
The project began to take shape while Broom and Macfarlane were working on The World to Come. During that period, Macfarlane was simultaneously making song and soundscapes with a vocal group called HOWL, each tethered to a “night sound,” Broom said. He had also been talking with Hawker about his artwork, which embraces themes of darkness and light, and hope and fear. “When I offered the platform for Luke and Robert to explore these ideas together in book-form, we all felt this was a rich seam to mine and so the idea of a trilogy was born,” Broom said.
The editor said she has admired their collaborative efforts over the past year during Glow Worm’s creation. “It’s been electrifying to witness a book being made in this way: sitting around a table together, shifting and molding and conjuring a story into being,” she noted. “I think readers will be able to sense that electricity when they open the covers of the book. It’s palpable.”
After Glow Worm, plans are to publish the subsequent two books in fall 2026 and 2027.
