Author Mac Barnett, 2025-2026 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, gave a closing keynote at Children's Institute that, much like his books, played with form and concept in unusual and interesting ways. While many attendees had left early on Saturday, the Portland, Ore., Convention center ballroom was packed for Barnett's speech.
National Book Award judge, events coordinator, kids' specialist, and general bookselling badass Cathy Berner of the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Tex., introduced Barnett by telling the assembled crowd the author loves a prank. She showed several pictures of him over the decades, describing Barnett as a man who "has never met a mustache he didn't love." One mustache, however, disagrees with Barnett: Ted Lasso's. "We have very different opinions on this show," Berner said. "I don't like it!" Barnett yelled from the audience. "You haven't watched it! How do you know?" Berner yelled back. "And don't tell me it's vibes!" They do agree on many other things: "That books for children are a true art form. That kids are the best audience for books and that they ask the questions artists and writers ponder." Barnett's slogan for his ambassadorship is "Behold the Picture Book!" which should "tell everyone the importance he places on the role children's books--and by extension children's booksellers--play in this world."
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| Mac Barnett | |
Barnett started by thanking the crowd: "I would not be here if it weren't for you. I write strange books, very specific books that I believe in. They don't always make sense to people immediately and it was because of fiercely independent booksellers recognizing what was valuable about my work that I found my readership and now have a career." He introduced himself as an author and former child. "I've had a lifelong fascination with picture books. They are my favorite books to write--I write novels and graphic novels, but the picture book is my favorite." This, he said, is because "the picture book is children's literature's greatest contribution to literature as a whole." The picture book has the combination of text and image; the economy and rhythm of poetry; great art. "But it's not just words and pictures--it's theater." The picture book, Barnett continued, is "a little stage play you can carry around with you. And you, the adult who reads the book to the child, have been cast as every character in the book. You are [the author's] collaborator." The picture books is an object, Barnett said, but it is also ephemeral--a performance that will never be repeated.
What else is the picture book? It's dance. "The body is so important, the angle of the book to the body to the arm to the face. The gesture of the page turn." It's music: It is "a piece of sheet music that is also the instrument." Picture books are connected to "that oldest human tradition: Telling stories out loud to each other. To entertain kids, to introduce them to the things that we think, and to reflect the things that they think about and enjoy, too."
Barnett's keynote was, as always, excellently plotted, well-spun, and full of entertaining asides. ("My first audience was sweaty crying four-year-olds who just had their dreams crushed on the soccer field. Probably why I hate Ted Lasso! Cruel show. 'Believe?' Believe in a false promise. You will never be a professional soccer player.")
Barnett is bringing to life his "Behold the Picture Book" platform. What is literature? What is children's literature? What is a picture book? These are the questions he is going to spend his ambassadorship examining, reflecting upon, and answering. And, likely, he will mostly be speaking to the importance of understanding and respecting the child: "We don't understand kids. It can be surprising for adults to see how deeply complex they are, how strongly they feel things, to hear their sometimes profound, sometimes silly (in a good way) questions about the world." Children, he said, "deserve real, ambitious literature." They deserve a balance of text and illustration, they deserve a curtain rise of a page turn, they deserve design that challenges as it teaches.
"There are so many adults between the book and the kid," Barnett said, "and what those adults think about those books determines whether the kid gets to read them. If we don't think it's real literature, it means we won't let kids read the books they want to read. All adults every step of the way have to pay attention to kids. We have to listen to them and think about what they are going through. We have to believe they are worthy of real art and real stories." Why? Because "if we don't think picture books are real literature, then on some level we don't think children are real people." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness