Make Believe

From the newly appointed National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, a timely and intimate meditation on 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.

About the Author

Mac Barnett is the ninth U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, appointed by the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader. He's a New York Times-bestselling author of stories for children and the writer, with Jon Klassen, of Looking at Picture Books, a newsletter for adults about how picture books work. Barnett's work has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.

His books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Awards, three E.B. White Read Aloud Awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Germany's Jugendliteraturpreis, China's Chen Bochui International Children's Literature Award, The Netherlands' Silver Griffel, and Italy's Premio Orbil. Barnett lives in Oakland, California.