05/12/2026
Mac Barnett’s new book Make Believe follows in the footsteps of his Picture Book Manifesto from 2011 - in which you’ll find the statement “the line between moral and meaning is paramount”. It also states that “we need a more robust criticism to keep us original”.
And 15 years later he is still making the point that we need criticism of art in the children’s publishing industry.
Barnett elaborates on moral vs meaning:
“A moral is an immutable lesson, intentionally encoded into a story by the author, meant to be inscribed on the child’s brain. Meaning, though, is created collaboratively: Children bring their individual intelligence and experience to an artwork and … decide what that story means to them.”
More favorite quotes:
“Boring books — moralizing, sermonizing, self-important books … often they are written by adults who start by thinking, ‘what do I want to tell kids’.”
“Even a story with a lesson should always be judged by how effectively that lesson is conveyed, not how worthy its message is or how important we think it is for kids to hear it.”
“The best children’s literature is as good as the best literature humans have produced, period. What we’re talking about is nothing less than art for kids. And don’t kids deserve real art?”
Like Maurice Sendak before him, Barnett is clearly no fan of didacticism in kid lit. And that distinction between moral vs meaning really gets to the heart of the matter.
Personally I think the biggest roadblock is that this art form has a different editor and purchaser (adults) than the intended audience (kids).
Many people are upset about Barnett stating 94.7% of kids books are crud. That’s his artistic opinion. I think it’s important to frame this as an indictment of the publishing industry and the decision makers/ gatekeepers - not of any individual artists. We’ve heard for many years that some authors are allowed to tell the stories they want while others are explicitly asked to write something didactic if they want to be published.
I hope this heated conversation about the quality of art in picture books continues, and somehow leads to more awesome artists getting to make the beautiful books they want for kids.
