From Pixar's Piper to Bunns Rabbit: Academy Award Winner Alan Barillaro's Journey to Children's Books

In this episode of The Growing Readers Podcast, host Bianca Schulze welcomes Academy Award-winning director, animator, and author Alan Barillaro to discuss his middle-grade novel, Bunns Rabbit. Best known for directing Pixar's beloved animated short Piper, Alan brings over 25 years of animation experience to the page with a deeply moving tale about a brave rabbit born with unusually short ears who must find her place in a world that fears her because she's different.

What began as a vulnerable leap from the security of animation—where Alan could "hide behind a monster"—became an intimate exploration of belonging, courage, and following your heartsong. Alan shares how his childhood struggles with dyslexia and his habit of reading backwards shaped his creative journey, why Roald Dahl's The Witches became a pivotal moment in his development as a storyteller, and how his personal experiences became woven into Bunns's world. With honesty and warmth, he reveals why he never feels "up to the task" as a creator, how vulnerability is essential to authentic storytelling, and why treating young readers with the same respect as adults creates the most powerful connections.

Read the transcript on The Children's Book Review.

Highlights:

• From Animation to Prose: Why Alan's editor had to convince him to write a novel instead of a graphic novel
• The Roald Dahl Awakening: How a fourth-grade book report on The Witches changed everything
• Learning to Read Backwards: Alan's experience with dyslexia and finding his way to storytelling
• Hide and Seek: Why animators feel like actors and how that prepared (and didn't prepare) Alan for writing
• Personal Sketches to Story: How drawings from his son's baseball games and his daughter's monarch butterfly became part of Bunns's world
• The Garden Approach: Alan's method of throwing story "seeds" without knowing which ideas will grow
• Color Scripts and Heartsongs: How film techniques like color scripting and specific music playlists shape his book writing
• Balancing Dark and Light: Creating illustrations that feel both shadowy and luminous
• Easter Eggs and Book Two: What's planted in Bunns Rabbit that will pay off in the sequel

Notable Quotes:

"I think Bunns would ask you to be true to yourself and that she would remind you that everyone feels that way... there isn't a single character in the story that doesn't feel a little different." —Alan Barillaro

"I felt like Roald Dahl always spoke to me like you would speak to an adult... the honesty and there's like some truth to what he's saying or cruelty, like he has all these little sides of him that as a young reader I found just really attractive." —Alan Barillaro

Books Mentioned:

• Bunns Rabbit by Alan Barillaro: Amazon or Bookshop.org
• Where the Water Takes Us: Amazon or Bookshop.org
• The Witches by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake: Amazon or Bookshop.org
• Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake: Amazon or Bookshop.org
• Madame Badobedah series by Sophie Dahl: Amazon or Bookshop.org

About Alan Barillaro:Alan Barillaro is an Academy Award-winning director, writer, and animator who has spent over 25 years at Pixar Animation Studios bringing beloved characters to life. His directorial debut, the animated short Piper, won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 2017. Alan has contributed his animation talents to numerous Pixar classics and now brings his gift for visual storytelling to children's literature with his debut middle-grade novel, Bunns Rabbit.

For more: alanbarillaro.com

Credits:

Host: Bianca Schulze

Guest: Alan Barillaro

Producer: Bianca Schulze and Kelly Rink