'It was more like, hooray, we can fix up the kitchen,' says Barrows.īarrows met Goldstein at UC Santa Barbara when they were sophomores. But a little thing like success wasn't enough to budge Barrows, her husband, Jeffrey Goldstein, who teaches social studies at Castro Valley High School, and their two daughters Clio, 16, and Esme, 12, from the 1918 bungalow/Prairie-style home the family's lived in since 1999. Given these triumphs, one might imagine more ostentatious digs.

There's no 'Ivy + Bean' film in the works yet, but the Bay Area Children's Theater is doing a musical adaptation that will premiere Feb. It also earned Barrows a two-book deal from Dial Press. The author's 2008 novel for adults, 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato-Peel Pie Society,' co-written with her late aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, has racked up 3 million in sales and been translated into 25 languages, with a film adaptation in development. Saturday is the first annual International Ivy & Bean Day, with more than 500 libraries and bookstores worldwide participating. The series, illustrated by Sophie Blackall, has sold 2.5 million books since its 2006 launch and been translated into six languages. 'My only reason to write these books is to give kids a good time.' 'I'm not trying to make them feel anything,' says Barrows, 50, a lithe 5-foot-2 with big eyes, round face and brown hair not unlike like Bean. Critics praise the series for its readability and realistic depiction of a second-grader's world kids love the friendship of opposites and that the books are not manipulative like so many children's books are. Bean is brunette, loud and ready for action. Ivy is a redhead, quiet and full of ideas. It is the ninth in the chapter-book series about the friendship and antics of two very different 7-year-old girls.

Barrows' latest book, 'Ivy + Bean Make the Rules' (Chronicle Books, $14.99), came out in September.

Annie barrows books in order