Where Does the Ceiling Go?

The answer given in this book is not the one a structural engineer would give. Ottoline Slab is not a structural engineer. She is a person who looked up at a ceiling when she was four years old and has been thinking about it since.

The book follows a child who asks where the ceiling goes. Each adult offers a different answer. The answers are not wrong, exactly, but they are the wrong kind of right: they explain how the ceiling is held up without addressing where it goes when you are not looking at it.

The last answer comes from an architect, who tells the child that the ceiling doesn't go anywhere — it simply becomes the floor for whoever is above. The child considers this. 'Then everything is someone else's floor,' the child says. The architect says yes. The child says 'that's a lot.' The architect says yes.

Recommended by Harold for ages four through adult. The adult age range is genuine.