Jane Yolen was a Jewish-American children’s author, poet, and young adult novelist. Yolen wrote more than 400 books for children and adults,
If you didn’t become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel nove
If you didn’t become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel novella “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” it’s likely you will once you become a parent, reading one of her many, many, many books for kids. My young boys are especially partial to her “How Do Dinosaurs?” series with its captivating, realistic dinosaur illustrations and snappy, funny text (and yes, there’s a Hanukkah “How Do Dinosaurs” book).
The prolific children’s book author, who was the recipient of multiple children’s book awards and six honorary doctorates, passed away this week at age 87. She was just about to release her 450th book. “Monsters of Fife: Terror Birds” will come out posthumously on July 14.
Yolen wasn’t raised particularly Jewish, and her exposure to religion was mostly at relatives’ homes, she recounted in a piece for the Jewish Book Council. As a teen, she did become fascinated with Jewish texts and traditions, getting confirmed at her local Reform synagogue; she was one of the first girls to read from the Torah on the bimah at that temple. And she minored in religious studies at Smith College.
But it took a while for Judaism to become part of her children’s book-writing career. In fact, she was two decades into her career when she got “noodged” into writing Jewish tales.
It all happened in the 1980s, she wrote in her essay for the Jewish Book Council: “One of my editors, who happened to be a rabbi’s wife, asked me why I had never written a Jewish book. And I had to think long and hard about that. And she noodged. Boy! Was she an expert noodge. The result was ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic.’ And then the Jewish stories began to tumble out.”
The books that came tumbling out were as gripping and wonderful and magical as the rest of her oeuvre.
There came magical stories about Jews and dragons and golems (co-written with her son, Adam Stemple).
She published illustrated books about Miriam and other biblical women (and even the children’s book adaptation of the famous “Prince of Egypt”).
She came up with her own twist on the tales of the Wise Men of Chelm.
She perhaps became most known for her three young adult tomes that tackle the Holocaust in novel ways. She wrote the “Sleeping Beauty” inspired “Briar Rose” and the “Hansel and Gretel”-esque “Mapping the Bones.” And of course, she penned the Nebula Prize Winning “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” about a Jewish teen who finds herself transported to 1942 Poland, which continues to be taught in schools to this very day, even as one Texas school district pulled it out of the curriculum for AI-detected “DEI content.” The book was famously turned into a 1999 film starring Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, Paul Freeman and Mimi Rogers.
Yolen also wrote books about Jewish holidays: “Milk and Honey,” and the lovely “Jewish Tale Feasts” (with her daughter, author Heidi Stemple), a book that my Jewish food-loving family adores.
Heidi, Adam and their brother Jason were all by their mother’s side when she “passed gently with no pain or stress,” Heidi shared on Instagram. Adam was playing his music while Heidi read from her mother’s book “Owl Moon.”
“As you all probably know, she had one of the most brilliant creative minds of our time,” Heidi wrote of her mother. “She has mentored, inspired and nurtured so many authors and illustrators through her words both on the page and off. But, beyond that, she was our mother and grandmother.”
May Jane Yolen’s memory be for a blessing; her books will certainly remain part of our lives for a long, long time.
Cat Sebastian has revealed the cover of her next book, Washed Up!
Washed Up is a contemporary romance about "best friends who were in a television show together as teenagers but haven't talked in fifteen years." It's a follow-up to Star Shipped.
It will be released on March 30, 2027! The pre-order links and official summary are not available yet, but we should get those soon!
I kind of miss the impulsivity that certain spaces used to allow. oh you want a hair cut today? hairdresser in the corner can fit you in before her 2 o’clock. tattoo of a cobra… sure leg or arm? even concerts, back when you could go to the box office thirty mins before any show. not saying these things don’t exist at all, but everything feels booked five months in advance and 10x more expensive
So as it turns out your sense of self doesnt exist in a vacuum. You gotta actually use it and bounce it off of other people like echolocation to see where you are as a person and shit. So if you dont regularly interact with other people the echoes just get weaker and weaker and before you know it your personality is a blurry fucked up fog clone of its former self. which it sucks because this makes it really hard to interact with people again but yknow
people like the idea that there is an identity they can claim that will absolve them of the responsibility to examine their beliefs and actions and adjust them accordingly to better align with their values and desired outcomes but there isn't, we all have to practice humility and do the work regardless
a person from 150 years ago would be terrified by modern stuff . however , a duck from 150 years ago would just be all like ,still got lakes? yes ? okay cool
Reblogging again because I thought they changed the quote so I decided to look up the actual quote and it’s not fake that is very much the actual quote
GRETA GARBO and ELIZABETH YOUNG in Queen Christina (1933) | Garbo plays the eponymous monarch, who true to the real historical figure, shares a passionate intimacy with her lady-in-waiting and lover Ebba Sparre, played by Young.
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