- Caitlin B.
- Thursday, May 05, 2022
Jane Yolen is a prolific writer of books for children that include the How Do Dinosaurs...? series, The Devil's Arithmetic, and Arch of Bone. Discover more about this amazing author's life and thoughts on writing for children.
I’ve been reading Jane Yolen's books for a very long time. The first to make a significant impact on me was, without a doubt, The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988). In this book Hannah, an apathetic teenage girl attending a Seder at her great aunt’s house, is transported from the apartment in modern day New York to 1930s Poland. There she enters the room of a young woman (Rivka) who identifies Hannah as her cousin; but while Rivka and her family believe the war is far from affecting their lives, Hannah knows that they will soon be in grave danger. The book is unflinching as Hannah becomes a firsthand witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. The Devil's Arithmetic has stuck with me for over twenty years and is still in regular circulation in the library system.
If you are the parent of a young child, you're probably most familiar with her books in the How Do Dinosaurs...? series (illustrated by Mark Teague), Merbaby's Lullaby (illustrated by Elizabeth Dulemba), or Owl Moon, which won illustrator John Schohenerr the Caldecott Medal in 1988.
Yolen says of writing and of children’s books:
The demands of picture books are so different from the demands of novels. There is a subtle dance between art and text which cannot be entirely planned for when the writer begins. A picture book writer needs to remain as supple as a dancer in order to accommodate a partner (the illustrator). It is the book-not just the text or art-that has to be whole.
Yolen has been called the "Hans Christian Andersen of America" and the "Aesop of the twentieth century" (jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/yolen-jane) due to her command of folklore, fantasy, and myth. Her books range from heart-wrenching historical fiction (The Devil’s Arithmetic) to lyrical poetry (Thunder Underground) to adorable and fun picture books (A Bear Sat on My Porch Today). She says this of writing, "I generally do not think out plots or characters ahead of time. I let things roll along. Organic is the word I use for this. But actually I do it because I am a reader before I am a writer. I want my own writing to surprise me, the way someone else’s book does" (https://www.janeyolen.com/for-writers/).
I began reading her most recent novel, Arch of Bone, this month. I was skeptical at first: the novel depicts the journey both physical and emotional, of Josiah, the son of the first mate from the ill-fated Pequod, the ship carrying the crew from Moby Dick. What possible interest could this story hold for the modern child who has most likely never heard of Moby Dick? I found myself quickly invested in fourteen-year-old Josiah’s story because of Yolen’s thoughtful, precise writing. It is a story of adventure, bravery, and stubbornness: a boy finds out his father has died on the high seas and what choice does he have but to set sail himself and avenge his father by killing the white whale?
Reading this book led me to want to know more about the writer, herself. Yolen was born February 11, 1939, in Manhattan, New York. Her mother, Isabell Berlin Yolen, was a psychiatric social worker-turned homemaker and mother. Her father, Will Hyatt Yolen, was a journalist, whose family emigrated to the United States from Ukraine. Yolen spent her childhood in Hollywood, where her father worked in film studios, then back in New York after WWII. Yolen began writing in high school, had poems published throughout college, and published her first book, Pirates in Petticoats, on her twenty-second birthday, while working for David McKay Publishing. The non-fiction book, now out of print, tells of the lives of women pirates including Anne Bonney, Mary Read, and Madame Ching, China’s most famous female pirate. Yolen married in 1962 to David Stemple, her husband of forty-four years, and the couple had three children and six grandchildren. She collaborated on two stories with her son, David, and has collaborated with her daughter, Heidi, on over twenty books.
Below is a small sample of some of my favorite Jane Yolen books. If you’d like to read more, you can find her books at any Richland Library location or call The Children’s Room at Main (803) 929-3434 and we will happily place holds for you.