Yuval Noah Harari working on middle grade book series

NEW YORK (AP) — The Israeli historian, philosopher and million-selling author Yuval Noah Harari has begun work on a planned four-volume middle grade series on a favorite subject: the history of humankind.

Penguin Random House announced Wednesday that the first volume of his “Unstoppable Us” series, subtitled “How Humans Took Over the World,” will come out worldwide Oct. 18. Bright Matters Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, will release it in the U.S. The books will feature illustrations by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz.

“’Unstoppable Us’ is the book that I wanted to read as a kid,” Harari said in a statement. “It tells the history of humans since the time we were just apes living in the Savannah, until the time we almost became god-like by flying in airplanes and spaceships. It’s a fun book — I hope young readers won’t want to put it down — and it’s also dead serious, aiming to preoccupy you with the questions it raises.”

Harari, 46, is known for such books as “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” and “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.”