Mac Barnett on How Kids Can Teach Us to Be Better Readers

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mac Barnett is a bestselling children’s book author and, since last year, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He has a new small book out for adults, Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children, that is a rousing defense not just of children’s books but of children themselves, as people and as readers. “If you’ve read good books to kids, you’ve probably been surprised when they noticed a detail in the pictures that you didn’t see, or been humbled when they understood something about the story you couldn’t. That’s because children tend to be better readers — more open-minded, more diligent, and more passionate — than adults. (No offense.)” We’ll talk to Barnett about how kids make us better readers and the enduring power of children’s books. Guests: Mac Barnett, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature; author, "Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children;" his children's books include "Circle," "Square" and "Triangle," "Extra Yarn", "Sam and Dave Dig a Hole" and the "Terrible Two" book series among others Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for a Key QBD podcast comes from Xfinity.
0:03.5	Thanks to the Xfinity five-year price guarantee,
0:06.2	your guaranteed five years of reliable Wi-Fi with our best equipment,
0:10.4	no annual contracts, and no fees.
0:13.0	Plus, get online in minutes with same-day Wi-Fi.
0:16.2	Lock in your price and unlock the possibilities.
0:19.1	Xfinity, imagine that.
0:22.5	Restrictions apply, select plans only. Support for K-QED comes from Genentech, the original biotech company. For 50 years,
0:30.0	Genentec has pioneered more than 40 scientific breakthroughs across various diseases,
0:34.9	bringing greater hope to patients everywhere.
0:42.0	Learn more at gene.com. That's g-e-ne-e-com.
0:44.6	From K-Q-E-D.
0:48.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:54.0	Mac Burnett is a children's book author, which means that his field is children's literature. Some people are
0:55.3	content to work in a field without knowing its history or the various camps and philosophies
0:59.4	that have existed through the eras. And other people, Barnett's one of them, must know everything
1:04.8	about the field. Like jazz guys who know all the players on all the great albums or poets who
1:09.7	decide they must learn to read
1:11.2	ancient Greek so they can read Sappho in the original. Barnett goes deep into the archives
1:16.5	of children's literature and always has. This tendency is on glorious display in his new small book
1:22.5	for adults, make believe on telling stories to children, first published in Italian and now finally out in English.
1:30.0	In this book, Barnett marshals the history of the field to advance his argument that we should take children's literature seriously because we should take children themselves seriously.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 3 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.