Barbara Alger creates joy in her children’s books and videos
By Nancy Barthel | For On Mission
NEW LONDON — For those who don’t think a second or even third chapter is possible in life, Barbara Alger is here to tell you it is.
A member of Most Precious Blood Parish in New London, Alger, 68, founded Wonderville Road Publishing about two years ago and is now pursuing what she calls “her lifelong dream of becoming a children’s book author.”
Drawing on her challenges as a young person and experiences working with young people, Alger tells visitors to her website, wondervilleroad.com, that her mission “is to ignite curiosity and foster a love for learning through wholesome entertainment.”
She is also an artist. She draws and paints, but these days Alger works in the medium of digital art, creating illustrations for her children’s and adult books. She also illustrates other authors’ books.
Alger has a framed digital art collection featured at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in New Franken.
“The Shrine, every other week they’re ordering,” Alger said. “They’re just selling out that fast.”
The Shrine also sells some of her books and, with a referral from Lisa Larson, manager of the Shrine gift shop, Alger has acquired a two-year contract with a distributor that will market her digital art worldwide.
“Lisa is very supportive, and she encourages me all the time,” Alger said. “She’s the one who got me to do the art.”
‘Parents and children — talk’
While some of Alger’s children’s books are secular, much of her work is faith-based. At the heart of all her children’s works is an important message. “Parents and children — talk,” Alger said.
In her office, she is surrounded by her many children’s books, including “I Spotted an Angel,” a popular First Communion book; “Let There Be Light,” about the story of creation; “Snow Angels,” a whimsical story about an angel with oversized wings; and “Hootie Hears a Hummingbird,” a charming tale about a grumpy old owl who finds joy in the unlikeliest of places.
Discounts are available to parishes or related associations that order the First Communion book, “I Spotted an Angel,” directly with her, Alger said.
For adults, she authored and illustrated “Imagine the Passion” and “Mysteries of the Rosary.”
Her books can be ordered through her website, wondervilleroad.com, or amazon.com.
Her website also offers free downloads of her digital art, much of it related to the Passion.
Alger’s newest venture is her gigglesandpraise.com free YouTube channel featuring a growing collection of musical children’s videos, including “Noah Had a Floating Zoo,” “Pray-Pray-Pray” and “Jesus Help Me, I Can’t Sleep.”
Eventually, she plans to upload animated versions of her books at giggleandpraise.com as well.
Alger invites individuals and families to subscribe to her free YouTube channel. “Likes and subscribers are really appreciated,” she said. “Once I reach 1,000 subscribers, I’ll start generating income to help cover the expenses of the apps and tools necessary to create the videos.”
“It’s God’s plan for me,” Alger said of Wonderville Road Publishing and gigglesandpraise.com. “I just know it. I’ll be in bed and words will come into my head, and I’ve just got to get up and get them down.”
Her life ‘goes together like a puzzle’
This happy, creative chapter of life Alger finds herself in was decades in the making. Her desire, through her writing and illustrating, to encourage parents and children to communicate with each other comes from her own difficult life experiences.
“My life goes together like a puzzle,” she said. Heartache is a significant piece of that puzzle.
One of nine children growing up on a farm, Alger said she was “sadly introverted” to the point where she would hide in the closet when company visited.
But at age 15, something wonderful happened: She was asked by friends to go to a wedding.
Alger wanted to buy a new dress for the occasion, but wouldn’t get paid from her part-time dishwashing job until a few days later.
As she writes in her account of the decision that would change her life, “So, I made the regrettable decision to sneak into my parents’ bedroom and take $20 from my mom’s cedar chest.”
She never got a dress and when she came home, her parents had discovered the money was gone.
“My parents were furious,” she wrote. “They kept calling me a thief. They told me to go to my room; they were going to call the police, and I was going to jail. Now, I was 15. I never got into trouble in my life. I seldom even left the farm. The thought of going to jail horrified me. I did go to my bedroom. But I wasn’t going to jail!
It was fall at the time. “I climbed out of my bedroom window, wearing nothing but blue jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt and a red nylon Budweiser jacket. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay there.”
With only the $20 bill still in her pocket, Alger’s decision to run away from home left her vulnerable, even putting her life in peril when she accepted a ride from a pickup truck driver down the road from her family home.
She didn’t know the driver. He took her out of state and raped her at knife point. Alger felt too ashamed to tell her parents.
“I was a confused child,” she said. “If I would have just spoken up that I was taken on a side road … I didn’t speak up, I was too afraid.”
When she arrived home weeks later, the emotional, often wordless, stalemate between Alger and her parents led her to run away again.
Her parents were good people, Alger emphasized. “None of this is on them,” she said. “I had no self-respect. I couldn’t look them in the face. It was me. I left.”
A life impacted by trusting the wrong people lasted into her adulthood.
‘Everything is a lesson learned’
Alger and her parents, the late Richard and Alice Hazaert of Glenmore, eventually mended their relationship, and Alger grew to adore her parents.
“Over the years, those tragic memories faded, and my parents and I became very close,” Alger wrote. “I actually rented the upper lever of their home for many years. What I didn’t understand back then, because I was a child … that money in my mom’s cedar chest was their tax money.
“They weren’t rich people. They were hardworking, honest people. Twenty dollars to them back then was like $200 to us today. And why the heck didn’t I speak up? Why didn’t I say, ‘Mom, Dad, I just borrowed the money. I was going to pay you back on Friday.’”
“It’s just funny how a child’s mind works,” Alger said, emphasizing, “God pulled me out of it.” Teenagers may look like adults, but they still “need guidance,” she said.
Alger eventually earned her GED high school equivalency degree and went to college for a year. “Everything is a lesson learned,” she said.
She started going back to church, and her life became one of service to others. Alger worked the majority of her adult life caring for the elderly and individuals with special needs.
She said her interest in helping others began in college as a volunteer at the Brown County Mental Health Center in Green Bay where she taught portrait drawing to troubled youth, helping boost their self-esteem and life skills.
Alger also taught portrait drawing and ceramics painting for many years at Brown County Shelter Care, working with troubled teens.
A lot of people to be thankful for
For 15 years, Alger served as vice president of the A & A Alexandrina Pro-Life Center, now the Alexandrina Pregnancy Resource Center in Green Bay.
She continues to be involved in pro-life activities.
Alger meets every four weeks with friends who make up a pro-life group. “We put our heads together to get that message out there,” she said. “We look at some internet options and advertising.”
Alger said she has a lot of people to be thankful for who entered her life at just the right times.
That includes her husband, Dale Alger, whom she married six years ago. When they met, she told him, “I’m looking for someone to be in a church pew with me the rest of my life.”
Most of all, she is thankful that Jesus is in her life.
“The things he puts in my heart, it’s just incredible,” Alger said.