The Barefoot Book of Children

Summary of Book

Innovative and inclusive, Barefoot Books Children of the World empowers young readers to learn about children around the globe and ponder their own place in it. Created with the guidance of diversity specialists, this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction addresses the need for children's books that depict diversity, while demonstrating the interconnectedness and uniqueness of all people.

Author Biographies

Tessa Strickland is Co-Founder & former Editor-in-Chief of Barefoot Books. Founded in 1993, Barefoot Books opened a US office in 1998 and has published internationally since that time. Writing as Stella Blackstone, as Oscar Seaworthy and as herself, Tessa has written over thirty picture books, which have sold many millions of copies and been translated into over 25 languages. Notable successes include The Gigantic Turnip, Portside Pirates, There’s a Dragon on the Doorstep and most recently, The Barefoot Book of Children.

Kate DePalma was born and raised outside Nashville, TN, USA. As Senior Editor at Barefoot Books, she has helped develop dozens of picture books, including The Barefoot Book of Children and My Big Barefoot Book of Wonderful Words, which she wrote and art directed with Tessa Strickland. Kate also writes picture books under her pseudonym, Sunny Scribens, and is a published poet and scholar. She holds an M.A. in Classics from the University of Texas and has taught courses and workshops in writing and publishing at Emerson College, the Margaret Mitchell House and beyond. She lives with her husband and daughter.

Illustrator Biography

When I was very small I was asked, at a clinic check-up, to draw some simple shapes (a test of development and coordination) and I drew instead a Fiat 127 car. Most of my childhood was spent drawing Star Wars characters and Transformers, and for many years I wanted to draw comics. Eventually it dawned on me that someone actually paints the pictures on book covers (and gets paid for it) - what a fantastic job that must be! And so I went to university to study illustration. I graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 1999 with a BA(Hons) and an MA in Communication Design, and have been working as an illustrator ever since. And yes, I was right: it is a fantastic job. I work in acrylic paint, though my artwork is typically delivered as high resolution scans. I live in Cheshire, England with my two cats and hundreds of books.