Ethel Barrett

Ethel Barrett (December 28, 1913 – May 10, 1998) was a prolific Christian writer, speaker, and storyteller, whose popularity peaked between the early 1950s and the mid-1980s. She sold millions of copies of over 40 different books for publishers like Zondervan, Gospel Light and Regal Books. The latter printed and sold more than 4 million copies of her work. She also recorded over 30 audio recordings distributed on records and tapes.

Biography

Ethel started her storytelling career as a Sunday School teacher in Schenectady, New York in the early 1940s. She was asked to teach the Boys Brigade class, made up of the most unruly boys in the area. She had so much trouble keeping their attention that she began telling Bible stories using character voices and full dialog to capture their attention. That Sunday School class became a great success and her local fame and storytelling talent landed her some weekend radio jobs where she would tell Bible stories on local Christian radio stations.

Her most recognized works included the retelling of John Bunyan's Holy War, The Chronicles of Mansoul, Storytelling - It's Easy which had more than 21 different printings, Don't Look Now, which sold over 80,000 copies, The Secret Sign, which sold over 165,000 copies, and Will the Real Phony Please Stand Up sold over 150,000 copies, and There I Stood in All My Spendor sold over 640,000 copies.

She won a Grammy Award and was posthumously awarded the Great Christian Storyteller Award for the last 100 years at the Christian Storytelling Convention in 2007.

Select bibliography

This book has been revised and renamed a few times:

Great Heroes of the Bible series

Stories to Grow On series

A series of children's books

First series illustrated by Jim Padgett

Many of these were released as audiobooks and 2-in-1 volumes

Second series illustrated by David Gaddy