Mac Barnett

... like writing for children.

Um, Mac Barnett, uh, is a, um, a award-winning, uh, children's author.

Um, uh, and he had a book that came out this past year called Make Believe, the subtitle On Writing For Children.

Um, and it's f- it's, it's phenomenal, and I think it's good for, like, storytelling in general, but especially for people who want to write to a younger audience.

But then two other books, really sweet books that I wanted to mention, picture books that we've read with her.

One is The Future Book by Mac Barnett.

And I just love all of his books.

Okay.

I'm not about to go start an imprint and I'm not about to go start an award, but I can be very mindful when I'm giving recommendations, like I said, and I think everybody could do that.

The last idea I have is I would like to see more... women partnerships of the kind like Mac Barnett and John Classen.

You know, I know that in theory, authors are not supposed to directly collaborate with illustrators, but we see this happen with guys all the time, you know, and then they have one really big book and then they get to do all the books they want.

And I would like to see more women coming together who are friends and doing that strategically.

And it was it's a small and simple book.

It's called Make Believe by Mac Barnett.

So usually I'm listening to fiction when I'm doing when I'm painting.

But this is kind of it's like a long form essay about the power of children's books, essentially, and that.

From the Hobbit hole all the way to Three Pines, these places exist together in the world.

There was a big kerfuffle this past summer, May of 2026, when Mac Barnett, the National Ambassador for Children's Literature, published an essay collection claiming that 94.7% of kids' books are crud.

This from the man who gave us the absolutely delightful Mac Undercover that Meredith and I both gave high marks to and our kids loved at the time, and then a sequel that received a dismal rating from all four of us.

[laughs] Me, Meredith, Micah, and Jackson all hated book number two because it was crud.

This week, we talk some more about the craft of illustrating kids' books.

Sean, you have collaborated with other writers besides Mac Barnett.

Tell us about the difference between working with Mac and, say, working with Dave Eggers.

I did my first book... for kids with Dave.

the stinky cheese man and silly ones and yeah it was i mean it probably had 50 stories in it and we read them over and over

I just listened to, I just, sorry, read the Mac Barnett book.

Have you read that yet about children's books? It's like a really, I can't remember what the name of it escapes me at the moment, but he's just, he's a children's book author and he's just written a book about why children's books are so important and how they just are like constantly, you know, children's book author and illustrators are just relegated to the kiddies table but really so much so many of us remember these books from childhood and he talks about some of those stories you just mentioned like the 20th century is this golden age of children's literature and it's definitely worth a read tell me what that title is because I'd love to read it yeah I definitely will you will you will it's a really small book and it's so powerful I read it and I just thought like I put it down and I thought to myself I can't wait to read that again

You create some of the most beautiful book rotations that I

Holly Baker, Children's Librarian, Park County Library, and Park County School District No. 6 School Librarian, Jennissen Lucas.

We're talking about a guy named Mac Barnett.

In certain circles, a rock star, right? This guy's...

Like 70 works under his belt.

Sam and Dave dig a hole.

Big, big, big children's books.

Mac Barnett's, you know, one of the top names, top authors.

He's coming to the library.