Joan’s Books
Ideas for the stories come from Joan’s everyday life in rural Apple Hill®, California.
Her three children worked hard in the family orchard, but they enjoyed many fun times, too. They raised pigs, goats, cats, and dogs, drove the tractor, planted pumpkins, watered apples, sorted apples, pressed apples, ate lots of apples, and even sold apples.
Those family experiences provided the seed for many of Joan’s stories, whose characters include grandchildren, grandparents, and animals.
Joan’s picture books include Mike and Nick and the Pumpkin Patch, Nana Gets a Cat, Christopher and Grandma on Safari, Andrew and Nana on Safari, The Little Green Frog and Other Poems, and the award-winning Grandmother’s Bell and the Wagon Train 1849.
She has also written a chapter book, Okei-san, based on the true story of a Japanese girl who came to California in 1869 to work at the failed Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony.
The Barsotti Books catalog has complete information about Joan’s books.