Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett

ACHUKA Book of the Day 23 Jun 2026

Publisher: LEAP / Bonnier Books ISBN: 9781806173143

“Compulsively readable.” New York Times “A loving sermon on the rewards of children’s books.” KIRKUS

See also by Mac Barnett: The Future Book [ACHUKA Book of the Day 1 Apr 2026] Rumpelstiltskin [ACHUKA Book of the Day 12 Mar 2026] The First Cat In Space And The Soup Of Doom [ACHUKA Book of the Day 17 Nov 2023] Twenty Questions [ACHUKA Book of the Day 6 Apr 2023] The Three Billy Goats Gruff [ACHUKA Book of the Day 16 Jan 2023]

Mac Barnett is the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in the US, a role comparable to that of the Children’s Laureate in the UK. This slim but wonderful title was first published in Italian and in other foreign languages before it appeared in English. The explanation, given at the end of the book, is that Barnett was asked to write it by his Italian publisher Terre di Mezzo. The deal was done on a handshake and the book was edited by Davide Musso and Giulia Rizzo who have been Barnett’s editors in Italy since early in his career and with whom he enjoys a close friendship.

It’s notable that both the US Ambassador and the UK Laureate for children’s books should have written and published books aimed at adults at the same time. Barnett’s book was published in the US a few months ago, but has only just been released in the UK. Coming to it close on the heels of Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s A British Childhood, I was initially disconcerted by the very different tone and style. It has half as many pages as Frank’s book, and those pages are double-spaced. The cover price is identical. But this is by no means a lightweight title. It’s a passionate work of advocacy for children’s literature, born out of a sense that children’s books and children’s writers are under-appreciated, especially now. “I’m not sure there’s ever been a time when children’s literature was exalted, but we’re sure not living in one now.”

Initially I didn’t care for Barnett’s use of footnotes but I quickly warmed to it. The book raised the hackles of some in the US because of the way Barnett focuses on the number of bad children’s books published. “Anybody who reads regularly to kids knows this. There are so many bad kids’ books, and kids’ books are bad in so many different ways. There are treacly ones, and preachy ones, and ones that don’t make any sense; books that are supposed to rhyme but don’t; books with amateurish writing, or amateurish illustrations, or both; bland books; boring books.”

Does that raise your hackles too? Not mine. But wait. Read the footnote. “Of course bad books can be good! Although one of the main points of this book is that kids have a right to great literature, they have a right to bad books too. But while we all know the pleasures of bad fiction (and bad TV, bad movies), bad kids’ books’ delights are usually inaccessible to adults, leading to the alienating experience of watching a kid enjoy a terrible book.”

He accepts Theodore Sturgeon’s 1958 Revelation that 90% of everything is crud, but ventures to argue that, in the case of children’s books, the percentage is higher. He reckons 94.7%. That tongue-in-cheek accuracy was taken far too seriously by some early commentators on the book. What Barnett means is that, if 90% of all creative works are not that great, the percentage is going to be higher for children’s books because the different adults involved in making them are all too likely to be tempted to make them preachy, educational or wacky. Barnett particularly loathes the didicaticism current today. Books about kindness, being yourself, making a difference. “These are lovely sentiments, but they make better bumper stickers than they do stories.”

This slim book is worth the cover price if only for Barnett’s brilliant exposition of Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. A footnote on p44 describes how incensed he was a few years ago on discovering that an important essay by Brown on “Writing For Five-Year-Olds” had never been published and was tucked away in a steel cabinet. Cue for another impassioned footnote. “One consequence of the low cultural esteem for children’s books is an atrophied discourse: a lack of rigorous literary criticism; the absence, despite deep divisions, of a robust public debate; shrinking review coverage in newspapers and general-interest media…”

Barnett and his wife both loathe The Polar Express film. “We think the animation is hideous and the storytelling is treacly and, ultimately, that the movie is an aesthetic and moral abomination.” He then adds. “My mom shows it to [our son] whenever she comes over. That’s what grandmas are for.”

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Originally published at https://www.achuka.co.uk on June 23, 2026.