Author Betty "B.J. Barker" with her book "The Stick Lizards: Mystical, Magical, and Legendary Adventure Series." | Courtesy Ron Barker
It all started as a story her father told her as a young child about the stick lizards in the desert.
"To get to grandma's house from our house in San Diego we had to go through the Mojave Desert," Betty Barker, who writes under the pen name B.J. Barker told the Kern Valley Sun. "On our way through the valley he would tell us to look for the stick lizards."
Barker, 73, who lives in Bodfish, said it was a story to keep her and her siblings entertained so they didn't get restless.
"He would tell us about the lizards that would carry a stick in their mouth and when their feet got hot they would climb up the stick and that's how they survived going through the desert," Barker said.
When her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, Barker said her mother, who recently died of cancer, suggested writing a book to keep the story alive. Barker was a teacher at a Christian private school and an aide at a local public school and didn't have any experience writing books but wanted to try out writing up the story for her family.
So she started researching and went to a Writers of Kern meeting in Bakersfield, with a manuscript of the story in hand.
There she met Debbie Fogle, an independent publisher with the Make Believe Publishing Company. Fogle helped her publish her first book in 2019 and her second book this year.
They're called "The Stick Lizards: Mystical, Magical, and Legendary Adventure Series." The books are available to order on Amazon in both paperback and in a digital form on Kindle.
The stories follow the warrior stick lizards who face obstacles that are real-life fears of Barker's.
"Their fears are some of mine including a fear of the dark and a fear of heights," Barker said. "I wanted kids to look up to them and see that they can overcome scary things," she said.
Barker is now working on a third book she hopes to have out by the end of the summer.
And it's a family affair. Her son Jordan Barker illustrated the cover for the first book and her daughter Dee Dee Jessee illustrated the cover for the third book and will do the covers for future books as well, Barker said.
Also, the names of the characters in the book are the names of people in her family with the letters just scrambled to make unique names.
"I never thought it would be more than one book but now I'm excited to make it a series," Barker said. "I'm going to keep going as far as I can."
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