Bringing Authors to Life

At the start of the pandemic, a few beloved children's authors began doing something that brought joy and organic learning into thousands of homes at a time when many kids were isolated from friends, activities and school. Each day, these special writers of beautiful stories took to social media and did something quite simple - they read their books aloud. My kids and I tuned in daily like so many and smiled, cracked up and looked forward to the next installment.

One of the authors my children looked forward to hanging out with most each day was Mac Barnett at what became known as the Mac's Book Club Show Book Club. In addition to reading his humorous, witty, soulful books, he shared "insider" details about how he created each title. He brought his characters to life with great voices. He shared kids' jokes. He used sound effects. He wore hats. He even let kids get to know his dog, Henry, who always took his chair. In time, the author of one of some of our favorite read aloud books - Extra Yarn, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, The Wolf, The Duck and The Mouse, Paolo Emperor of Rome and The Kid Spy Series - became our friend.

A few weeks ago, we found out that Mac Barnett would be coming to our city in celebration of his new book release - The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza. I immediately got tickets and when our book arrived a week ago, we began furiously reading it. Eddie and Audrey were very familiar with the story, as it was developed spontaneously over social media by Mac and his dear friend and illustrator Shawn Harris. Each Saturday, they released a new episode of this live comic they were coming up with in real time. We marveled at the gorgeous pencil drawings, the clever paper animation and, of course, the story. And, months and months later, we got to read the polished continuation of those first drafts. I had to pry my kids' fingers off of the pages in order to savor it for a few more days. My kids were repeating lines on the way to school, on the walk home from school and to their friends who hadn't even read the book yet. We finished the book with a day to spare and headed to The Second Star to the Right bookstore to meet our friends.

Mac and Shawn were everything we had come to know from them - warm, genuine and palpably excited to read their work to children. They greeted my kids with awe and playfulness - shaking my son's "hand," made from about 4 wooden rulers taped together, and asking for my daughter's paw. My son was dressed as Loz 4,000, a toenail clipping robot with extendable arms and my daughter was dressed as the First Cat in Space, complete with a full spacesuit, helmet and drawn-on whiskers. Mac and Shawn shared a photo of the two of them as 7 year old friends and they read an excerpt of their spectacular book (alongside a pre-recorded audio that went perfectly with every moment of the text.) They took kids' questions and answered them thoughtfully. They signed kids' books and made sure they got their name spelling correct. We left talking about every detail and unsurprisingly, were repeating more funny moments on the walk to school this morning. Sound effects and all.

While the entire experience of getting to know Mac Barnett has been what feels like a rare dream as both a mom and a reading teacher, I believe we as parents can take a lot from the impact of Mac's Book Club Show Book Club and re-create some of it's magic more regularly for our kids. Here's how....

It is incredibly powerful for kids to learn that books are written by people - real people. These people have houses and pets and quirks that make them unique. They were children once. They used their imaginations to write stories that started as drafts and even just as ideas floating in their minds before that. When kids get to know authors, they are more curious to read their work and more willing to, for example, branch out and read new genres like graphic novels because they trust that the authors they know won't let them down. If the pandemic has taught us anything, we know we can be resourceful as parents. Yes, we can sign up for our local independent bookstores' email list and be alerted when authors come for book readings. But we can also show our kids video clips of authors' interviews on YouTube, read a few articles aloud about different authors' backgrounds and look up photos of authors on Google. With a few extra steps, we can start to bring authors to life and in turn ignite more passion, curiosity and joy for reading. We may even inspire our kids to write books themselves. A huge thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris, for all that you both do for story time.