I have a new picture book and a new TV show

Plus Christian Robinson and I are going on a book tour

Hi, everybody. Some new stuff is coming out (and came out, but I’m only just now writing about it), and, as always, I hope that you enjoy this new stuff, and maybe even enjoy this email, if it’s possible to enjoy an email. (Thank you for signing up to get emails from me.) OK so!

TWENTY QUESTIONS

Twenty Questions is a new picture book written by me and illustrated by Christian Robinson, who is one of our greatest picture book illustrators and also my old friend, so I feel doubly lucky to have worked with him on this one. It’s a special book. I’m excited for it to get out in the world, because this book in particular will not be a finished artwork until kids read it. It comes out on 3/14, and if you preorder from East Bay Booksellers in Oakland, California, where Christian and I live (the city, not the bookstore, although I am there a lot), we will sign and personalize your copy. We’ll be signing preorders on 3/13, so order before then if you want one of these! Oh and Christian and I will be going out on tour in March—tour dates at the end of this email!

SHAPE ISLAND

This is kind of a wild one: Jon Klassen and I created a TV show together. It’s called Shape Island and airs on Apple TV+. The show is based on our Shapes books, and we (and brilliant cast and crew [including a hugely talented group of writers]) worked hard to make something funny and smart, a show that takes kids seriously, something that shares the soul of our books for kids. Oh! And it’s stop-motion. We started production the week my son was born and when it aired recognized all the characters from the books, because now he’s almost two. I believe you can watch the first episode for free, at least a few people told me that’s true. If that’s not true anymore, blame those people, not me (though I won’t tell you who they are, to protect them). But we’re proud of the whole season, right up to the final seconds of the last episode, which has a bit of animation that Jon and I can’t stop talking about. If you don’t have Apple TV+, there are free trials of whose lengths depend on whether or not you’ve recently bought an Apple device—and if you signed up for a free trial and then immediately watched Shape Island, that would definitely be the kind of thing that “improved our reputation with the network.” But really, no pressure. And if you finish our show and are looking for something else to watch, Severance was my second-favorite show I watched last year.*

Here’s a Twitter thread about Shape Island that gets at a lot of what we wanted to achieve with the show:

Bob Flynn @bobjinx

We took our time with Shape Island, because each episode was so rich relationship challenges and differences between the 3 characters. It prompted a lot more questions from my 3yo than the typical preschool shows he watches. Which I want to take a second to talk about.

BLAMO!

I recently got to go on one of my favorite podcasts, Blamo!. Jeremy Kirkland is such a smart and thoughtful interviewer, and it was fun to talk to him about books and also about clothes, because I think about clothes a lot but don’t really get to talk about them, at least not in public. You can give it a listen here (it’s not a kids’ podcast).

🎼THE WOLF, THE DUCK, AND THE MOUSE

If you’re in or near London, the composer Martin Suckling is premiering a new work based on The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse—“a fable in music”—with Aurora Orchestra on March 4. I wish I could go! If you go, please tell me how it was. I haven’t heard it yet! (Though I am a fan of Martin Suckling.)

THOSE TOUR DATES I TALKED ABOUT EARLIER

We'd love to see you.

Thursday March 16, 6PM
Brick & Mortar Books 
7430 164th Ave. NE. Ste. B105
Redmond, WA 98052
https://www.brickandmortarbooks.com/events/20230316

Friday March 17, 6:30PM
Village Books at Sehome High School
2700 Bill McDonald Pkwy
Bellingham, WA 98225
https://www.villagebooks.com/event/litlive-mac-barnett-christian-robinson-031723

Saturday 18, 2PM
B&N Bellevue
15600 NE 8th Street Suite F17
Bellevue, WA 98008
https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062154378-0

Sunday March 19, 2PM
Auntie’s Bookstore public event at Spokane Public Library
906 W Main Ave
Spokane, WA 99201
https://www.auntiesbooks.com/event/twenty-questions-mac-barnett-and-christian-robinson

Tuesday March 21, 4PM
King’s English public event @ The Neighborhood Hive
2065 East 2100 South
Salt Lake City UT 84109

Friday March 24, 6PM
Best of Books
1313 E Danforth Rd.
Edmond OK 73034
https://www.bestofbooksok.com/event/mac-barnett-christian-robinson-twenty-questions-signing

GOODBYE

Goodbye,
Mac

*My number-one favorite show I watched last year was old Sesame Street episodes, 1969 through ~1990, an unprecedented and probably unrepeatable run of American television excellence.