The author of more than 60 books for young readers and 2011’s “Picture Book Manifesto” that challenged creators and their publishers to energize the category, Barnett became the 2025–2026 national ambassador for young people’s literature in February. Barnett, who will be presenting the closing keynote at CI2025, spoke with PW about his love of picture books and how much he enjoys reading aloud picture books written by other authors.
What prompted your platform “Behold, the Picture Book”?
The picture book is one of the great literary forms, but it’s an underappreciated literary form for two reasons. One, people don’t really understand how picture books work to tell stories, with the interplay of text and image, and the page turn. Two, people underestimate children. They don’t think that especially young children are capable of understanding sophisticated artwork. Just the opposite is true: young children are some of the best appreciators of artwork. I really want to celebrate the picture book, talk about how it works, and talk about how smart the kids who read it are—and the adults who read it too, by the way, because the picture book is usually read by adults to children. It’s literature that adults and kids share.
Why do you feel so strongly about picture books?
I just feel a sense of obligation and duty to this art form that raised me as a writer, both as a kid and as an adult. It was the picture book that taught me to write, and so it’s nice to have a chance to go out there and pay the picture book back a little bit. Reading picture books with my mom as a kid, that’s how I fell in love with reading. I remember
reading The Stinky Cheese Man [by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith] to my campers as a summer camp counselor during college—that’s what made me want to write picture books. Although I write novels and graphic novels too, I’m in love with the picture book.
What do you see as your biggest challenges as ambassador?
My greatest challenge will be this longstanding cultural resistance toward taking children’s literature seriously. There are strong forces that believe that children’s books are not art, that they are a vessel for teaching children lessons to modify their behavior. These sort of deeply ingrained attitudes towards kids make it hard to see children’s literature for what it is: an art form. Admittedly, the picture book is less than 100 years old, and we’re still figuring out how these things work, but every year picture books come out that show me some new trick that this art form has.
Are you concerned that you’re going to have to put your own writing aside for the next two years?
It’s been busy. I am working on a graphic novel series, and I have six picture books coming out next spring. I also have a four-year-old, so time management is intense. But this is giving me an opportunity: when I do events as ambassador, and I’m promoting the picture book as an art form, I get to read picture books by other people. When I’m a touring author, I have to read my own work—that’s what people want me to do. What a relief to get to read other people’s picture books, and I love reading them aloud. I’m excited to kind of get a break from my own brain and my own writing.
What do you intend to say to booksellers during your keynote?
We’re going to have some fun. We’re going to read picture books out loud, which I think is one of the most joyous things you can do with a big group of people. And we’re going to talk about literature. We’re going to talk picture books and why they’re important, and you can’t talk about that without talking about why children deserve good art. I love reading my books to kids, but I also really love talking to adults about how picture books work, and trying to help people understand how important this art form is.
Mac Barnett will give the closing keynote, “Behold, the Picture Book!,” in the Oregon Ballroom, 203–204, Floor 2, on Saturday, June 14,
4–4:45 p.m. He will also participate in the panel “Reading Picture Books” in B117–119, Floor 1, on Saturday, 9:30–10:30 a.m.
