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Make Believe : On Telling Stories to Children - Mac Barnett

Make Believe

On Telling Stories to Children

By: Mac Barnett

Hardcover | 11 June 2026

At a Glance

Hardcover
112 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.41 x 14.0 x 1.6

Hardcover

RRP $39.99

$36.75

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MAKE BELIEVE will be an incisive, intimate, and timely look at the ways we think about and interact with children's literature, and what that says about our opinions of children and childhood.

Make Believe is a book for adults about books for children, a rallying cry for art and imagination, and a celebration of the power of storytelling in all our lives.

Mac Barnett, the beloved, bestselling children's author and U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, urges us to think expansively about the potential of children's books-and the particular brilliance of young readers:

What if children are a great audience for art?
What if they are in fact better equipped to engage deeply with stories than adults?
What if humans' ability to appreciate art is, if not innate, awakened early in childhood?

Well, then we'd better do our best to make some good kids' books.

Barnett has published more than 60 children's books, which have been translated into 30+ languages and have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, winning many international prizes along the way. Make Believe is his incisive, intimate, and timely invitation to approach children's literature not only as an art form worthy of deep study and criticism, but as a portal into the lives of the children. And at a time when we are faced with a national literacy crisis, he champions the profound joys of literature and the importance of reading for pleasure.

Written with humor and academic rigor, Make Believe reads like a letter from one's smartest and funniest friend.

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Literature, Poetry & Plays History & Criticism of Literature Children's & Teenage Literature Studies Society & Culture Social Groups Age Groups Age Groups for Children Medicine Pre-Clinical Medicine & Basic Sciences Human Reproduction, Growth & Development Human Growth & Development

Psychology Child & Developmental Psychology Self-Help, Personal Development & Practical Advice Popular Psychology Assertiveness, Motivation & Self-Esteem & Positive Mental Attitude General Literary Studies

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