Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children

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.