Bariso Press Editor and Publisher Harriet Kocher Lewis is pleased to report that Pintsized Pioneers at Play: Homemade Frontier Fun and Danger was a double winner in the 2026 Literary Global Children’s Book Awards just announced.
The nonfiction middle reader book she co-authored with Preston Lewis took top honors in LGCBA’s categories for best historical nonfiction book and best nonfiction cover design. This follows the precedent set last year when Pintsized Pioneers: Taming the Frontier, One Chore at a Time, the original book in the series, was LGCBA’s 2025 recipient for best historical nonfiction book and a finalist for best nonfiction cover design.
Since Harriet and Preston established the independent publishing imprint Bariso Press in 2021, they have published 14 books and received 21 different awards, including Will Rogers Medallions, Spur Awards, Independent Author Awards and Texas Institute of Letters recognition.
Three more books—one reprint and two originals—are in the works for 2026. Next up will be a reprint of Just Call Me Uncle Sam, the third book in our Old West Critters Collection for middle readers, on June 2. That will be followed Sept. 1 by Steamboat’s the Name, a new original book in the Old West Critters Collection. That will be followed in November by Beloved Companion, a previously unpublished 1864-65 Civil War diary and collection of letters between James and Frances Catherine Wood.
The Lewises are currently researching another book in their Pintsized Pioneers series for 2027: Pintsized Pioneers in Love.
