How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett (review)

The story here starts with the author’s arm-wrestling of a tiger, an event that, he knows, needs to become a book, but Barnett then uses the creation of that story to turn a lens on the process of literary creation itself: “The first draft of this book was not so good. Neither was the second draft. Or the third. Or the twelfth.” There’s some comic but ultimately authentic detail about working with an editor (“I took some of her advice. And I ignored some of her advice”), getting the book printed, and getting those printed books shipped. At that point things turn into a more freewheeling story about the fantastical digressive journey this particular volume undertook, ending on the reader-response note that it was really when “you read this book through to the very last page” that this book was made. While the story gets a little rambly at times, it’s friendly and vigorous, depicting writing as a communicative process rather than one of silent inspiration, and the emphasis on the necessity of imperfect work is laudable and valuable. Rex’s mixed-media art is robust and genial, with bold pencil strokes, lively collage layering, and lots of map and globe images for the communication and shipping scenes. The layout is enjoyably hectic, with text in informal font appearing aslant within bubbles and hills in contrasting digital color, adding to the humorous tumult. Kids who’d snore their way through a factual account will embrace this sustained dad joke about authorship.