Jean Craighead George Popular Books

Jean Craighead George Biography & Facts

Jean Carolyn Craighead George (July 2, 1919 – May 15, 2012) was an American writer of more than one hundred books for children and young adults, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves and Newbery runner-up My Side of the Mountain. Common themes in George's works are the environment and the natural world. Beside children's fiction, she wrote at least two guides to cooking with wild foods and one autobiography published 30 years before her death, Journey Inward. For her lifetime contribution as a children's writer she was U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1964. Biography Jean Carolyn Craighead was born on July 2, 1919, in Washington DC. She was raised in a family of naturalists. Her mother, father (Frank Craighead Sr.), brothers (Frank and John), aunts, and uncles were students of nature. On weekends they camped in the woods near Washington, climbed trees to study owls, gathered edible plants, and made fish hooks from twigs. Her first pet was a turkey vulture. George centered her life around writing and nature. George graduated in 1940 from Pennsylvania State University with degrees in both English and science. In the 1940s she was a member of the White House Press Corps and a reporter for The Washington Post. From 1969 to 1982 she was a writer and editor at Reader's Digest. She married John Lothar George in 1944, and they divorced in 1963. Her first novels were written in collaboration with him, and she provided the illustrations for them, done in black and white watercolors or inks. A later editor encouraged her to use other illustrators for her books. Two of George's novels for children were My Side of the Mountain, a 1960 Newbery Medal runner-up, and its 1990 sequel On the Far Side of the Mountain. In 1991, George became the first winner of the Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature from the School Library Media Section of the New York Library Association, which was presented to her for the "consistent superior quality" of her literary works. The inspiration for Julie of the Wolves evolved from two specific events during a summer she spent studying wolves and tundra at the Arctic Research Laboratory of Barrow, Alaska. She explained, "One was a small girl walking the vast and lonesome tundra outside of Barrow; the other was a magnificent alpha male wolf, leader of a pack in Denali National Park. They haunted me for a year or more as did the words of one of the scientists at the lab: 'If there ever was any doubt in my mind that a man could live with the wolves, it is gone now. The wolves are truly gentlemen, highly social and affectionate.'" George won the annual Newbery Medal from the American Library Association for Julie, recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". She also won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1975 for its German-language edition Julie von den Wölfen, one of only two such double wins (with Scott O'Dell and Island of the Blue Dolphins). George was a mother of three and a grandmother. The 2009 Dutton Children's Books Pocket Guide to the Outdoors is credited to "Jean Craighead George; with Twig C. George, John C. George, and T. Luke George". Daughter Twig C. George had previously written a few children's books about animals. Over the years, George kept one hundred and seventy-three pets, not including dogs and cats, in her home in Chappaqua, New York. "Most of these wild animals depart in autumn when the sun changes their behaviour and they feel the urge to migrate or go off alone. While they are with us, however, they become characters in my books, articles, and stories." Jean died on May 15, 2012, at the age of 92 from complications of congestive heart failure, according to Twig George, at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. Works 1948 Vulpes the Red Fox (American Woodland Tales series, with husband John L. George, illustrated by Jean George) 1949 Vison the Mink (American Woodland Tales series, with John L. George, illustrated by Jean George) 1950 Masked Prowler, The Story of a Raccoon (American Woodland Tales series, with John L. George, illustrated by Jean George) 1952 Meph, the Pet Skunk (American Woodland Tales series, with John L. George, illustrated by Jean George) 1954 Bubo, the Great Horned Owl (American Woodland Tales series, with John L. George, illustrated by Jean George) 1956 Dipper of Copper Creek (American Woodland Tales series, with John L. George, illustrated by Jean George) 1957 The Hole in the Tree (as by Jean George, writer and illustrator) 1958 Snow Tracks (as by Jean George, writer and illustrator) 1959 My Side of the Mountain (Mountain series #1, as by Jean Craighead George, writer and illustrator) (ISBN 0-14-034810-7) 1962 The Summer of the Falcon (illustrated by George) 1963 Red Robin, Fly Up! (picture book, photos by Ellan Young) 1964 Gull Number 737 (illustrated by George) 1964 Marvels and Mysteries of Our Animal World (Jean George editor and contributor) 1965 Spring Comes to the Ocean (illustrated by John Wilson) 1966 Hold Zero! (illustrated by George) 1967 The Moon of the Owls (The Thirteen Moons series #1, picture book illustrated by Jean Zallinger) 1967 The Moon of the Bears (The Thirteen Moons series #2, picture book illustrated by Mac Shepard) 1967 The Moon of the Salamanders (The Thirteen Moons series #3, picture book illustrated by John Kaufmann) 1967 The Moon of the Monarch Butterflies (The Thirteen Moons series #5, picture book illustrated by Murray Tinkelman) 1968 The Moon of the Fox Pups (The Thirteen Moons series #6, picture book illustrated by Kiyoaki Komoda) 1968 The Moon of the Wild Pigs (The Thirteen Moons series #7, picture book illustrated by Peter Parnall) 1968 The Moon of the Mountain Lions (The Thirteen Moons series #8, picture book illustrated by Winifred Lubell) 1968 Coyote in Manhattan (illustrated by John Kaufmann) 1969 The Moon of the Chickarees (The Thirteen Moons series #4, picture book illustrated by Don Rodell) 1969 The Moon of the Deer (The Thirteen Moons series #9, picture book illustrated by Jean Zallinger) 1969 The Moon of the Alligators (The Thirteen Moons series #10, picture book illustrated by Adrina Zanazanian) 1969 The Moon of the Gray Wolves (The Thirteen Moons series #11, picture book illustrated by Lorence Bjorklund) 1969 The Moon of the Winter Bird (The Thirteen Moons series #12, picture book illustrated by Kazue Mizumura) 1969 The Moon of the Moles (The Thirteen Moons series #13, picture book illustrated by Robert Levering) 1969 New York in Maps (listed as Toy Lasker and Jean George) 1970 Beastly Inventions: A Surprising Investigation Into Just How Smart Animals Really Are (illustrated by George) 1971 Who Really Killed Cock Robin? (Ecological Mystery #1) 1971 All Upon a Stone (picture book illustrated by Don Bolognese) 1972 Julie of the Wolves (Julie series #1, illustrated by John Schoenherr and Julek Heller in 1976) (ISBN 0-06-440058-1) 1972 Ever.... Discover the Jean Craighead George popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jean Craighead George books.