Barbara Kerley

Barbara Kerley grew up in Virginia. As a kid she loved to play soccer, ice skate, read historical fiction, and help her mom in the kitchen. In high school, she spent hours working with theater groups and also shared her dad’s fascination with history and current events. After college, she joined the Peace Corps, teaching in Nepal. There, she met her future husband, Scott. Barbara and Scott moved to Seattle, where Barbara worked as a baker while going to graduate school. Later, they moved to Guam, where Barbara taught English, learned to SCUBA dive, and had a baby.  The family left Guam and moved to Eureka, California, when their daughter Anna was eight months old.

Barbara, Scott, and Anna now live McKinleyville, California, where Barbara writes full-time and serves on the local school board and the Friends of the Library committee. When she is not writing, she is usually reading, hiking, canoeing, cooking, watching movies, or feeding her very fat cat.

Learn more about Barbara Kerley at BarbaraKerley.com.

Books by Barbara Kerley

Brave Like Me (National Geographic Children’s Books)

With a Friend by Your Side (National Geographic Children’s Books)

A Home for Mr. Emerson, illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham (Scholastic Press)

The World Is Waiting For You (National Geographic Children’s Books)

A Cool Drink of Water (National Geographic Children’s Books)

What To Do About Alice?, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book (Scholastic Press)

Greetings from Planet Earth, a Librarians’ Choices Book (Scholastic Press)

A Little Peace, a Chicago Public Library “Best of the Best” Book (National Geographic)

You and Me Together, an ALA Notable Book (National Geographic)

Walt Whitman: Words for America, an ALA Sibert Honor Book (Scholastic Press)

A Cool Drink of Water, a BCCB Blue Ribbon Winner (National Geographic)

The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, a Caldecott Honor Book (Scholastic Press)

Songs of Papa’s Island, an ALA Notable Book (Houghton Mifflin)