Loved this collection of essays! Super quick and effortless read because of the length and the wit peppered throughout. I first became interested in Mac’s view on writing for kids after watching his and Jon Klassen’s episode of Creative Peptalk (Andy J Pizza’s podcast).

He has a really interesting and empowering view of writing for kids that completely centres the child. He uses the amazing rhythm, strong tone of voice and perfectly timed page turns to create effect here (like he does in his picturebooks) while explaining while literature for kids is as important if not more important than literature for adults. He respects children as well-equipped readers of fiction and insists on excellence in the books made for them.

He makes a case for kid’s to have more autonomy over the art they consume as well as their right to consume “trash” as much as adults. I always love when books use metaphor to drive a point home and he does this many times in Make Believe. If you’re interested in writing for, publishing for, reading to or even curating books for kids you should read this.

Mac Barnett has a newsletter with Jon Klassen in which they dissect and discuss picturebooks - you should sub if you enjoyed this book!

I am still on my lifelong quest to find a book that I love as much as ‘Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow’ and this did hit the youth-passionate-about-building-a-game-together spot as well as the snapshot-of-multiple-lives-over-multiple-decades format that I enjoy.

I have a special place in my heart for online spaces (especially pre-social-media) so it was exciting to be privvy to unfamiliar online spaces and I loved reading the chat logs.

It made me nostalgic for talking to strangers on msn and tumblr. I feel like Abraxa’s chat logs were nostalgic and made me think of friends I made online in the mid to late 2000’s which is sweet for me personally.

I read this based on a recommendation given by one of the viewer of my Youtube channel - if that person is reading this: thanks! I enjoyed it.