Barbara would love to visit your school

Barbara’s back, and doing live school visits!

Barbara gives a minimum of three 45 minute powerpoint slide presentations per school visit day.
She can adapt her presentations to shorter 30 minute presentations for Pre-K and K groups.

Barbara talks about how she drew as a child, and eventually turned her love of drawing and making up stories into her adult life career. She likes to mention that she wanted to be a cat when she grew up, and is lucky she had art and writing as a backup plan! She draws - a lot - as she gives her presentations.

She discusses where she gets ideas for her books, using selected books as focus titles, and talks about her writing process, making ‘doodle books’ ( a combination of notebooks and sketchbooks ), outlining and planning stories, research, creating dummy books, revising, and creating finished manuscripts and artwork for her books.

Barbara leaves time at the end of her presentations for Q&A with students.

Barbara's visits are developmentally appropriate for various ages ranging from pre-K through 6th graders. Her visits are very interactive and lively, and engage students with a passion and love of books and reading.

She currently has talks based on:

—TOMFOOLERY! RANDOLPH CALDECOTT AND THE RAMBUNCTIOUS COMING-OF-AGE OF CHILDREN’s BOOKS. Author Michelle Markel, Illustrated by Barbara. Great for mock-Caldecott exercises!

—NOTHING STOPPED SOPHIE; THE STORY OF UNSHAKABLE MATHEMATICIAN SOPHIE GERMAIN written by Cheryl Bardoe, illustrated by Barbara. An inspiring STEM-focused presentation.

—VROOM! Written and illustrated by Barbara. A perfect introduction to geography, comparing/contrasting basic concepts, travel, time, and the inherent love of going fast! Good for preK-4th graders.

For more info and to book a school visit contact allyson@bookedauthors.com.


I had so much fun talking and drawing for a group of kindergartners and first graders at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. See all the fun here in this video of my presentation created by videographer Kate Geis!