Award winning author Barbara Bauer Mueller spent the day with students at South Effingham High School on Thursday.
Mueller has written 10 books that include young reader’s books and historical novels.
She won Georgia Author of the Year Awards in 2006, 2008 and 2009. She also is the recipient of three “Mom’s Choice Awards” and is a silver medal winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards, the 2014 Great Southeast Book Festival winner in the regional literature category, 2014 San Francisco Book Festival winner in the wild card category, 2014 New York Book Festival winner in the young adult category, and was the 2014 New England Book Festival runner-up in regional literature.
Mueller talked with pre-k and special needs students about her trilogy of “Kiska” cat books for young readers, “The Bumpedy Road,” “Rain City Cats” and “Eight Paws to Georgia.”
Kiska was the family cat and moved with Mueller from her home in Mexico City, Mexico to San Diego, Calif., Canada, and then to Georgia.
Mueller and her husband now live on Jekyll Island.
The author also spoke with U.S. History students about her historical novels, “Neptune’s Honor” (2005), “An Angry Drum Echoed”, “Splendid Isolation” ,” Water to my Soul,” and “Lady Unveiled.”
“Lady Unveiled” tells the story of Kitty Greene, wife of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene. Greene owned Mulberry Grove, a plantation on the Savannah River. He and his wife settled there after the war.
Kitty Greene helped Eli Whitney with the invention of the cotton gin but got no credit for it since she was a woman.
She has recently begun to be recognized as the coinventor, Mueller said.
“Splendid Isolation,” is about the millionaires of Jekyll Island Club, “Neptune’s Honor,” is about a slave on St. Simons and “An Angry Drum Echoed,” is the story of Mary Musgrove, a Creek Indian. “Water to my Soul” is the story of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who was the first colonist to successfully cultivate the indigo plant.
Media specialist for SEHS, Catherine Olivier, said students were fortunate to have Mueller visit.
Olivier said she heard Mueller speak a number of years ago and knew then she wanted to have her visit South Effingham.
To learn more about Mueller and to purchase books, visit pinatapub.com.