Founder of Barefoot Books

 Nancy Traversy

Owner, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Living Barefoot for me is creating beautiful, magical and authentic stories and art and bringing these to a grassroots, global community of people who care about how our next generation of children is raised. 

I was born in Canada into a family with a bit of an artistic bent. Though I love all aspects of colour, design, and illustration, I also kind of like numbers and somehow ended up with a business degree and a job in the banking division of Price Waterhouse in London after graduating. I really didn’t quite fit the mould there, so soon left to work in a more artistic environment in a London design house. I stayed in the design industry for many years, where I got to travel often to the Far East and learned lots about all aspects of running an entrepreneurial creative company. 

When I met Tessa in 1992, my eldest daughter was three weeks old and I had just started my own management consulting firm advising small creative start-ups. As a new mum and an avid explorer of world cultures, I was immediately captivated by the idea of publishing books for children that celebrated diversity and imagination. I didn’t really know much about the publishing industry back then and, in hindsight, that was probably lucky as Barefoot has always strived to be more of a pioneer than a follower.  

Over the next eight years, I had three more children and ran Barefoot from my home in north London. My kids were always around and actively involved in testing stories, picking artists and generally helping out. In 2001, we decided to cross the Atlantic so I could be closer to our North American business. Since then, I’ve lived in Concord, MA with my husband, four children, an ever-expanding menagerie of animals and lots of colour

The Animal Boogie Children's Song Book