Take A Trip to Shape Island with Executive Producers Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

Finding quality children’s programming can be a trial. Oftentimes, shows shout at your children to keep their attention. These shows assault kids with vibrant colors and loud characters, and frankly, leave a lot to be desired. While the world has been blessed with a fantastic series with a blue heeler, there aren’t a lot of shows that measure up to it.

Enter Shape Island, now with a new set of episodes for season two. The Apple TV+ show is based on the internationally bestselling picture books from Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen and features the voices of Yvette Nicole Brown, Harvey Guillen, Scott Adsit, and Gideon Adlon. Most of the 12-minute episodes follow Square, Triangle, and Circle as they live on the island and navigate each other’s differences. I was a big fan of the first season of Shape Island, and I’m happy to say there are a lot of gems in season two as well.

I was honored to have some time to talk to authors and executive producers Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen about their series, the labor of stop motion, and some season two surprises.

Shape Island Season Two premieres on Friday, August 29th, on Apple TV+

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Max:
First off, I’m a big fan of the Shape Trilogy books. I read them often with my child. I wanted to ask, what’s the deal? Why do you both find open-ended questions so important at the end of your books?

Jon/Mac:
We like questions better than answers. Or at least I think the craft of clearly stating a question can be just as interesting as answering one. We find that kids love talking about them afterward — they’ll often ask, “Who was the shape in the dark?” Not because they’re frustrated, but because they want to engage with the question. That’s exciting to us.

It’s also about respect for the audience. We don’t think of ourselves as above kids or as holding all the wisdom. Some people believe stories, especially children’s stories, should deliver a lesson — essentially an answer. To us, that’s a much less interesting way to tell a story. Stories are best at exploring mysteries and conveying complexity. Those are the stories I loved as a kid, and they’re the stories I love writing.

We also think a character can change or land somewhere satisfying without necessarily answering the question posed. That challenge — creating a sense of completion without resolving everything — is what makes storytelling fun. Ever since I was a kid, I felt like I would come to the end of a story, and the whole time it was just an adult who was trying to get me to share or take a bath with my fingernails. It felt like such a betrayal. Children can tell when you’re not in the room with them. The goal is making sure you are in the room with them and that you are discovering something rather than putting them on autopilot until you think the child deserves an answer after eight minutes.

Max:
Do audiences ever ask for written sequels to the Shape stories? And do you consider Shape Island to be that sequel?

Mac:
Absolutely. I often tell kids at school visits that while we don’t know if there will be more Shape books. The honest answer is that we don’t know. Shape Island is definitely a new story about the same characters. We’re proud that Triangle, Circle, and Square in the show feel like the same Triangle, Circle, and Square from the books.

If you love the books and watch the show, you won’t feel betrayed — you’ll feel like you’re deepening your relationship with the characters. And if you find the books after watching the show, it feels like discovering new stories with the same personalities you already love. We tried hard to listen to what we knew of the characters and stay true to that because it’s the whole assignment, really.

Max:
You’re both executive producers. How much of the show’s adventures come from your collaboration, and how much comes from director Drew Hodges?

Jon/Mac:
We were really involved throughout production, though Drew oversaw animation and production. Ryan Pequin, our head writer, wrote or assigned episodes and worked closely with us.

During COVID, I [Mac] often collaborated late at night with Ryan since I was up at three in the morning with a baby in the house. Ryan was up at three in the morning since he was the head writer of a television show. Jon focused heavily on production design. Over time, we leaned on each person’s strengths — by season two, we had a rhythm that worked well.

Max:
Speaking of Drew, did you bring him on because of his work on Tumbleleaf? Shape Island has a calmer rhythm than many children’s shows, which often feel overwhelming.

Jon/Mac:
Yes, absolutely. We knew Drew’s sensibility from Tumbleleaf and in [animation studio] BixPix. We wanted Shape Island to have that gentleness — moments of quiet, beauty, and rhythm. Children’s animation can often feel like it’s shouting for attention. We wanted the opposite: to grab attention with gentleness and atmosphere. Drew shared that vision, and it was a huge advantage. [Shape Island’s] maximum volume is like an eight, whereas some shows go to twelve and blast you.

Max:
You chose stop motion for Shape Island, which is more labor-intensive. Was it worth it?

Jon/Mac:
Stop motion gave us creative solutions. The characters already feel toy-like, which made the world scale work naturally. Is this a people's world? Probably not. What’s across the ocean? We don’t know. It grounded the characters in a tangible place — Triangle literally sitting under a real tree with light hitting him. That sense of physicality helps kids imagine the world continuing even after the episode ends.

It also allowed animators and puppet makers to discover new dimensions of the characters. Their performance choices often fed back into the writing, creating a deeper sense of personality and place.

Jon thought these characters were a great gift to the puppeteers; all they have to do is make a pyramid, a sphere, and a cube, and put some eyes on it. Then those puppeteers come back and say they were the hardest puppets they’ve ever had to make. The animators would sort of connect to one of the specific characters, whether that’s circle, square, or triangle, and really be drawn to working with that character.

*Spoilers for Season Two*

Max:
In the first episode of season two, you took a big swing narratively, making Yvette Nicole Brown’s narrator the main character in an episode. How did that come about?

Jon/Mac:
That idea came early from our writing team. Ryan Pequin wrote the episode, and all credit to Apple, we really didn’t have to convince anybody to make this episode. We wanted the narrator to be reactive, not all-knowing, so her frustrations and emotions become part of the storytelling.

Yvette had always wanted to narrate a show, and her enthusiasm shines through. She even improvised a “nature documentary” voice in season one, which inspired the narrator-focused episode in season two. Her energy and playfulness shaped the writing in major ways.

And I think, Max, this goes back to your first question of why questions instead of answers. If your whole episode acts like the end was predetermined, and you were trying to get to this answer/lesson from the start, then there are no discoveries to be made. When you’re a kid and you discover something unique about the world, well, that’s the stuff I wanted to watch as a kid.

Max:
Later in the season, there’s an episode called Triangle Stands Still that touches on mindfulness and meditation. What inspired that?

Jon/Mac:
It actually started as a joke about having a character literally stand still for 11 minutes in stop motion. But as we developed it, we became aware of how much mindfulness messaging kids receive. Circle embraces meditation, sometimes to the point of being a little insufferable, while Square is caught between his two friends. Triangle, in his restless energy, stumbles into transcendence almost by accident.

The episode acknowledges the value of mindfulness but also pokes fun at it — a balance we love. It was also a challenge to see if we could pull off an engaging stop-motion episode where almost nothing moves.