Barefoot Books

Barefoot Books is an independent children’s book publisher. Founded in England on 9 September 1992. The company in now based in Concord, Massachusetts, United States as of 2021.

History


The company began as a home business in 1992 and was founded in England by Nancy Traversy and Tessa Strickland. Barefoot Books are sold via several outlets, including through the company's "Barefoot Books Community Book Seller" program. Book Sellers are individuals who sell Barefoot Books products through home parties, community, and school events.

Barefoot Books creates picture books, activity decks, board books, animated singalongs and educational content for children aged 0-12, covering themes including early learning & concept building, social-emotional learning, global awareness, health & wellness, and sustainability & STEAM. Their popular singalong videos available on YouTube have garnered nearly half a billion views. Barefoot’s highly-anticipated Autumn 2023 Catalog consists of over 20 new titles including the Kirkus starred reviewed and graphic-novel-adjacent picture book, Stranded!, as well as five new additions to their critically-acclaimed Our World series that follows days in the lives of children around the world. This series will also be included in the collection of dual-language editions Barefoot plans to release in Spring 2024, with each book translated into the language native to the country it features.

By 2006, Barefoot Books had released more than 400 books. In March 2012, the company released The Barefoot World Atlas app. In 2017, they were named by Forbes as one of the 25 Best Small Companies in America.

Barefoot was the first children’s book publisher on Faire, the B2B online marketplace that launched in 2017.

In 2018, Barefoot partnered with Little Passports and Kiwi which made it the first children's publisher to participate in subscription boxes. With the subscription boxes, sales grew over 350% before 2020.