Jean Craighead George
Jean Craighead George
Jean Carolyn Craighead Georgewas 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth2 July 1919
CountryUnited States of America
I hope that the message I conveyed in 'Julie of the Wolves' is to tell young people to think things out. Think independently.
I hope my books empower kids, and that they learn how to work out their problems themselves.
By the time I got to kindergarten, I was surprised to find out I was the only kid with a turkey vulture.
I first became aware of the delights of the natural world when my father, an entomologist, presented me with what looked like a twig. When it got up and walked, my delight was such that I wrote a poem, 'To a Walking Stick.'
I met senators, diplomats and the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
We humans will never know how meadows or mountains smell, but deer and horses and pigs do. Bando sniffs deeply and shakes his head. We were left out when it comes to smelling things, he says. I would love to be able to smell a mountain and follow my nose to it.
I must say this now about that first fire. It was magic. Out of dead tinder and grass and sticks came a live warm light. It cracked and snapped and smoked and filled the woods with brightness. It lighted the trees and made them warm and friendly. It stood tall and bright and held back the night.