NANCY TRAVERSY, BORN 1960
PUBLISHER OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Nancy Traversy and Tessa Strickland founded Barefoot Books from their kitchen tables. Travesty had been working with the accountants Pricewaterhouse, and Tessa had worked at Penguin and had run the mind-body-spirit list for Random House. They launched their first list in 1993, when Nancy was 33. By 1996 they were doing $2m in sales, with no overhead and only two employees. In 1998 they opened an office in New York, and in 2000 Nancy and her family moved to the USA, where they felt the biggest business opportunities lay. They later moved to the Boston area, and set up a Barefoot Books store in Harvard Square, Cambridge. At the time of writing (2001) Barefoot Books has published several hundred books, mostly still in print. They also produce puppets, puzzles and CDs. Barefoot Books describes its mission as being to share stories, connect families, and inspire children.
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