Not long after, Trafton got a package and inside was a bottle of Amanda's energy. 'I just made a comment that she had so much energy, I wished I could bottle it,' Trafton said.

She was like bouncing around the room and everything,' DKG member Julie Trafton remembered about that first award ceremony. 'She came with her mom and dad and she was so excited. That story won first place in the Mary Jo Nettesheim Literary Competition, which is sponsored by Delta Kappa Gamma, a society for women educators. 'It was a story about a prince, a princess and a misunderstood spider.' 'These are some of the first illustrations I did,' showing off her first book. The Racine teenager started writing and illustrating these books when she was just 8-years-old. 'It's also fun to look back and see how my art has progressed,' she said. It's called 'Debbity Doodah and the Case of the Jailbreak.' Billerbeck has come a long way from her first book that she wrote in the third grade. 'It's completely stylized like a comic,' she said of her latest work. I'm self-taught,' the teen said, showing examples of her illustrations.īillerbeck started with simple, hand-drawn characters in colored pencil and marker, and now she uses her tablet to create her illustrations. I know who did it,' she said.Įach book is 'dedi-catted' to real pets. 'What happened, she asked? The gouda was stolen! Skipper cried,' she read.ĭebbity Doodah has been solving crimes for years on the pages of Billerbeck's books. 'So this is Debbity Doodah and the Case of the Missing Smoked Gouda,' Billerbeck said, holding a copy of one of her books. She sat down with CBS 58 to look at how her work has evolved over the last decade.

The creative characters in her stories are mostly inspired by her life growing up in Racine. She's written 10 books so far, and she's only 18 years old. MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) - Amanda Billerbeck is a prolific and award-winning author. AG Kaul makes stop in Milwaukee calling on opioid settlement.

Growing up skipper pencil