Jean Craighead George
(b. 1919)

Jean Craighead George has been creating fiction and nonfiction works about nature since the late 1940s. Basing much of her writing on personal experience and exploration, George captures the appeal of the natural world for her audiences. Through careful observations and an engaging writing style, she provides fascinating insights into the plant and animal world all around us.

George was born in Washington, D.C., in 1919, and spent her childhood summers on the family farm in southern Pennsylvania. On the land her ancestors had held since 1742, she learned as a young girl to love both nature and literature. Her scientist father had a great influence on her, but so did her twin brothers John and Frank. Even as teenagers the two boys were actively involved with natural pursuits. For example, their love of falcons, or hunting hawks, led them to introduce the sport of falconry into the United States. Later, they would do some of the earliest tracking of grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park by installing radio tags on the bears' necks. As George has written, "With two such brothers, a younger sister had to be a writer to find her niche and survive."

George graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1941 and for a time was a reporter for the Washington Post. In 1944, she married John L. George. John George shared her interest in nature, and soon they published their first book, Vulpes, The Red Fox. The two worked together on five other books, mostly animal biographies based on wild creatures they had taken into their home. John brought his research and his observations to the books, but Jean did most of the writing and illustrating.

At this time, the Georges lived near Vassar College in New York State, where John was a teacher. Eventually they had three children: Carolyn (called "Twig" because she had been such a tiny baby), Craig, and Luke.

In the 1950s, George began writing on her own. She worked for several years on her first novel, My Side of the Mountain, which was very successful when it was published in 1959. Set in the Catskill Mountains in New York, the novel tells of young Sam Gribley, who lives alone in the wilderness for a year. Sam survives by making a comfortable home in a hollow tree and by developing his skills in wild cookery. As with many of her books, George spent time in the Catskills in order to give the events in the story authentic details. My Side of the Mountain received several awards when it was published.

One summer, George took her son Luke to Alaska to find out more about wolf behavior. She studied life in wolf packs and how wolves communicate. She used this information in her novel Julie of the Wolves and in her later books Julie and Julie's Wolf Pack. Julie of the Wolves, one of George's best-known books, won the Newbery Award in 1975.

Today, George lives in a rambling house in New York and continues to write, usually publishing at least one book a year. Her house is filled with souvenirs from her nature trips, including Eskimo masks from Alaska. Her children, now adults, have followed in her footsteps: Craig and Luke are environmental scientists (one lives in Alaska) and Carolyn is a writer.

In 1990, George published a sequel to My Side of the Mountain called On the Far Side of the Mountain, and in 1999 wrote another related book, Frightful's Mountain, which was highly praised. Lately she has worked with a composer to create music to accompany some of her books.

As a nature writer, George fits into a strong American tradition. For example, some of the earliest Native American accounts that we have are poems about the beauty of the prairies and mountains. When Europeans came to the North American continent, many wrote descriptions of the land they explored. Much early writing of this type was done to help other explorers find their way around. By the 1700s, however, several writers were focusing on the plants and wildlife they found, often including carefully made drawings. Thomas Jefferson, our third President, wrote a nature book called Notes on the State of Virginia, describing the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley.

One of the most important American nature books of the 1800s was Walden. Its author, Henry David Thoreau, spent two years alone in a cabin on Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Though Thoreau expressed his views on life and politics in this book, many parts of it are wonderful nature descriptions. One passage, for example, describes a battle between red and black ants.

In the 1900s, some American nature writing began to focus, as much of George's writing does, on preserving the environment. John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, wrote beautiful descriptions of West Coast landscapes, and he also worked actively to keep them from harm. All nature writers have this in common with Jean Craighead George: They want readers to appreciate the wonder and diversity of the natural world.

A  |  B  |  C  |  D  |  E  |  F  |  G  |  H  |  I  |  J  |  K  |  L  |  M
N  |  O  |  P  |  Q  |  R  |  S  |  T  |  U  |  V  |  W  |  X  |  Y  |  Z