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How This Book Was Made

How This Book Was Made Open the full-size image

Contributors

By Mac Barnett

Illustrated by Adam Rex

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Sep 6, 2016
Page Count
48 pages
Publisher
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN-13
9781423152200

Price

$18.99

Price

$24.99 CAD

Format

Hardcover

Format:

Hardcover $18.99 $24.99 CAD

Buy from Other Retailers:

Beloved, bestselling creators Mac Barnett and Adam Rex team up again, this time to reveal the nitty gritty process of making a book…with a few unexpected twists along the way!

You may think you know how this book was made, but you don’t. Sure, the author wrote many drafts, and the illustrator took a long time creating the art, but then what? How’d it get into your hands? Well, open the cover and read through these pages to find out. Just beware of the pirates and angry tiger. Budding writers and artists will laugh at the mix of reality and the absurd as the story makes its way to a shelf…and eventually, to a reader.

“Fans of these wacky creators will eat it up.” —School Library Journal

Don’t miss these other books by Mac Barnett!
Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem
Chloe and the Lion
Rules of the House
Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World)
Oh No! Not Again! (Or How I Built a Time Machine to Save History)

Genre:

  • "From the mixed-media cover art to the closing tiger-print endpapers, Barnett and Rex's surreal digressions and visual humor ensure that the tale will not follow a straightforward course. (At one point, illiterate pirates hijack the story for a single spread before vamoosing because they don't read.).... The joke density in a volume that includes an arm-wrestling tiger and Ben Franklin scaling Philadelphia's city hall like King Kong will keep many readers flipping the pages.... This quirky exercise in self-reflexiveness offers a nugget of truth about the laborious process of producing books. Fans of these wacky creators will eat it up."
    School Library Journal
  • "Barnett and Rex, no strangers to metafiction, have outdone themselves in terms of tongue-in-cheekiness... Young audience members will love every over-the-top moment."
    The Horn Book
  • "Rex's mixed-media illustrations keep up with the text and pack in plenty of chuckles."
    Kirkus Reviews

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Mac Barnett

About the Author

Mac Barnett is the ninth U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, appointed by the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader. He’s a New York Times-bestselling author of stories for children and the writer, with Jon Klassen, of Looking at Picture Books, a newsletter for adults about how picture books work. Barnett’s work has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. His books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Awards, three E.B. White Read Aloud Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award,Germany’s Jugendliteraturpreis, China’s Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Award, The Netherlands’ Silver Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Orbil. Barnett lives in Oakland, California.

Learn more about this author

Adam Rex

About the Illustrator

Adam Rex is the multi-talented author of books for children, middle readers and young adults, as well as an accomplished illustrator. He has written such beloved picture books as School’s First Day of School (illustrated by Christian Robinson), has created both pictures and words for favorites like Are You Scared, Darth Vader?, Nothing Rhymes with Orange, and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich; and he has illustrated books by bestselling authors like The Legend of Rock Scissors Paper by Dreew Daywalt, Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem by Mac Barnett, and Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman. The True Meaning of Smekday was his first novel, followed by Smek for President! and other books for middle and teen readers. He grew up in Phoenix, got a BFA from the University of Arizona, and now lives in Tucson.

Learn more about this illustrator