Barbara Berger's original artwork for her children's books.

Barbara Helen Berger was born in the Mojave Desert but moved to Seattle. She grew up loving to draw and paint, and earned a BFA degree in Painting at the University of Washington. During her five years of study, she also went to Yale Summer School of Music & Art, and abroad for a year to Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy where she studied the art that she so loved as a child in the art books her father had in his study.

For ten years after college, Barbara worked as a painter with gallery shows in Seattle. In 1980 her focus turned to books for children. "All along, I loved writing too. My secret wish was to bring art and words together in my own books," she says. That wish came true after taking a class with Jane Yolen and later illustrated Brothers of the Wind by Yolen. The first book Barbara both wrote and illustrated was Animalia in 1982 followed by Parents Choice Award winning Grandfather Twilight in 1984 and Golden Kite Award winning The Donkey's Dream in 1985.

Barbara's soft, evocative artwork is filled with luminescent and clear colors that lend a jewel-like grandeur and majesty to her ten books created for children and adults.

Barbara lives on Bainbridge Island in the Pacific Northwest.