Darleen bailey beard biography of barack obama

I was raised in Levittown, PA, in the 1960's. All us neighbor kids used to play flashlight tag, stickball in the street, go sledding, and catch crawdads in pop bottles at the creek.

In 1971, I had an amazing, life changing experience--I met my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Jacqui Schickling.

Darleen bailey beard biography of barack obama

Her classroom was filled with words and writing. She created a school newspaper called the "Hoover Hotline" and we all became reporters, columnists, and editors. We wrote book reports, stories with our spelling words, and wrote and illustrated our very own books.

One day, Mrs. Shickling put her arm around me and said, "If you work hard at this, I think you can write a real book when you grow up." And that's just what I've done. My first book, The Pumpkin Man from Piney Creek, (Simon & Schuster, 1995) is dedicated to my teacher.

Here's our class picture:  I'm in the second row of girls, third from