The Polar Bear Preorder Power Pack!
PLUS Mac's Book Club Show, Live Cartoons, Frog & Toad & MORE! (But not much more.)
Hi! I’m Mac Barnett. This is my first-ever email newsletter, which you signed up for at some point in the last decade. If you’ve forgotten doing that, or if whatever child in your life who once liked my books is now in college and couldn’t care less about me, sorry!
To everyone else, here we go!
THE POLAR BEAR PREORDER POWER PACK
On October 13, my next picture book will come out, made with my oldest friend, Shawn Harris. We’re doing a special preorder thing with Copperfield’s Books. (If you’ve been watching Mac’s Book Club Show, you know Shawn. If you have no idea what Mac’s Book Club Show is, I talk about it later in this newsletter!)
Order before 10/13/2020, and you’ll get
A book signed by me and Shawn!
A sew-on polar bear patch (designed by Shawn)!
A signed poster!
A letter on official Book Club letterhead!
Residents of the USA/Canada can order here. If you’re outside the USA/Canada, please send an email to petaluma@copperbook.com to figure out shipping and everything.
Shawn and I are very excited that we finally have a book coming out together. Look how long we’ve been friends!
MAC’S BOOK CLUB SHOW
Every week on Instagram, I read a different one of my picture books out loud.
It’s called Mac’s Book Club Show. I’ve been doing it since March 15 (back then it was daily). Read more in such august cultural organs as Publishers Weekly, The Times of London, and even the The Economist, wherein you will learn that my stats pale in comparison to something called David Walliams’s “Elevenses,” which, after several google searches and a visit to David Walliams’s website, I still don’t really understand what that is. His site is very yellow though!
We’ve had 73 Book Club Meetings so far. Please join us this Saturday for Meeting 74, when we’ll be reading Battle Bunny. Episodes stay up on Instagram for about a week before they’re deleted. Hats are optional, but encouraged.
THE FIRST CAT IN SPACE ATE PIZZA
Every Saturday for twelve weeks, as part of Mac’s Book Club Show, Shawn Harris (see above) and I presented a new Live Cartoon, an art form we invented. The result is a 12-part space opera, The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza. Each episode was filmed on a Zoom call, with Shawn animating his drawings in real time while we both did the voices. It’s hard to explain. You should just check ’em out. The whole thing is up on YouTube, and I’m as proud of it as anything I’ve ever worked on.
And if you’re reading this letter thinking, “I could sure use another newsletter!” I’ve got great news: The First Club in Space is where we keep everyone up-to-date on First Cat goings-on. In our next dispatch, we’ll be sending a kit that’ll help you make your own Live Cartoons. Plus Shawn is giving away some original art from the show to ten lucky subscribers.
THE CRUMBS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE NEWSLETTER
I shared some thoughts on Frog & Toad for a piece in Slate (and there are a bunch of great authors and illustrators sharing their thoughts too).
A little video about A Polar Bear in the Snow.
Feels like there should be a third thing here but I couldn’t think of anything.
OK, that’s all for now. Since we’re all newsletter friends here, I will tell you that I find email mortifying, so there won’t be a lot of these newsletters, although they probably will come out more frequently than the current rate of one every ten years. Thanks for reading to the bottom!
Mac