Jane Yolen was born on February 11, 1939, in New York City. She grew up in New York and Massachussetts. Her first memory of books is of riding home from the library with a lapful of them, at age four. She was writing poems before she was old enough for school, and, in first grade, she wrote the class musical, both words and music. It was about a group of vegetables who cooperated to form a salad, and she was the head carrot.
Jane went to Smith College and the University of Massachusetts. On her 21st birthday, she sold her first book, Pirates in Petticoats, a nonfiction book about women pirates. She says that first sale was all it took to make her into a book writer for good.
Jane has written over 200 books, most of them for kids. She's also been an editor, a teacher, a storyteller, a critic, a songwriter for rock groups and folk singers, a mom, and a grandma. For twenty years, she ran a monthly writer's workshop for new children's book authors. She has served on the board of directors of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1986 to 1988. She was a founding member of the Western New England Storytellers Guild, the Western Massachusetts Illustrators Guild, and the Bay State Writers Guild. She currently serves on the editorial board of several magazines. Take a breath, lady!
Many of her books are rooted in folklore, which she calls "the perfect second skin. From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world." In 1980, Jane was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree by Our Lady of the Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, based on her dedication to folk culture. Do not ask me why this merits a law degree, but it was a nice gesture.
Jane has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the 20th century. Not half bad.
Jane and her husband have three kids and three grandkids. They divide their time between homes in Massachusetts and Scotland.
Books:
All in the Woodland Early
All Those Secrets of the World
Alphabestiary
Animal Fare
Armageddon Summer
Baba Yaga
The Ballad of the Pirate Queens
Before the Storm
Beneath the Ghost Moon
Bindings
Bird Watch
The Book of Fairy Holidays
The Books of Great Alta
Boots and the Seven Leaguers
Briar Rose
Child of Faerie, Child of Earth
Children of the Wolf
Color Me a Rhyme
Commander Toad and the Big Black Hole / Commander Toad and the Dis-Asteroid / Commander Toad and the Intergalactic Spy / Commander Toad and the Planet of the Grapes / Commander Toad and the Voyage Home / Commander Toad in Space
Dear Mother, Dear Daughter
The Devil's Arithmetic
Dove Isabeau
Dragon's Blood
The Dragon's Boy
Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mole
Eeny Up Above
Elfabet
The Emperor and the Kite
Encounter
The Fairies' Ring
Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World
Firebird
The Girl in the Golden Bower
The Girl Who Cried Flowers
Good Griselle
Grandad Bill's Song
Hands
Harvest Home
The Haunted House
Heart's Blood
Here There Be Angels / Here There Be Dragons / Here There Be Ghosts / Here There Be Witches
Hobby
House, House
How Beastly!
How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
The Hurrying Child
Into the Green
An Invitation to the Butterfly Ball
Jane Yolen's Old MacDonald Songbook / Jane Yolen's Songs of Summer
King Long Shanks
The Lap-Time Song and Play Book
A Letter from Phoenix Farm
Letting Swift River Go
Little Mouse and Elephant
The Mary Celeste
Meet the Monsters
Merlin / Merlin and the Dragons
Milk and Honey
Miz Berlin Walks
The Musicians of Bremen
Nocturne
Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Giirls
O, Jerusalem: Voices of a Sacred City
Odysseus in the Serpent Maze
Off We Go
Once upon a Bedtime Story
The One-Armed Queen
The Originals
Owl Moon
Passager
Pegasus
The Pictish Child
Piggins / Piggins and the Royal Wedding / Picnic With Piggins
The Prince of Egypt
The Queen's Own Fool: A Novel of Mary Queen of Scots
Raising Yoder's Barn
The Red Ball
Ring of Earth
Sacred Places
The Sea Man
Sea Watch
A Sending of Dragons
A Sip of Aesop
Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories
Sister Light, Sister Dark
Sky Dogs
Sleeping Ugly
Snow, Snow
Tam Lin
Tea With an Old Dragon: A Story of Sophia Smith, Founder of Smith College
The Three Bears Holiday Rhyme Book / The Three Bears Rhyme Book
Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie, & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood
The Transfigured Hart
Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Twice upon a Time
Vampires
Water Music
Welcome to the Green House / Welcome to the Ice House / Welcome to the River of Grass / Welcome to the Sea of Sand
Where Have the Unicorns Gone?
White Jenna
The Wild Hunt
Wings
Wizard Fantastic
Wizard's Hall
The Wizard's Map
The Wolf Girls
Xanadu / Xanadu 2 / Xanadu 3
thanks to:
http://www.penguinputnam.com/cgi-bin/to_catalog.cgi?section=catalog&page=yreader/authors/294_biography.html
http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/myth/bio.htm
www.janeyolen.com
www.amazon.com