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Her book, Julie of the Wolves
won the prestigious Newbery Medal, the American She attended Penn State University graduating with a degree in Science and Literature. In the 1940s she was a reporter for The Washington
Post and a member of the White House Press Corps. After her children were born she returned to her love of nature and brought owls, robins,
mink, sea gulls, tarantulas - 173 wild animals into their home and backyard. These became characters in her books and, although always free to go,
they would stay with the family until the sun changed their behavior and they migrated or went off to seek partners of their own kind.
She is still travelling and coming home to write. In the last decade she has added two beautiful new dimensions to her words beautiful full-color picture book art by
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write for children. Children are still in love with the wonders of nature, and I am too. So I tell them stories about a boy and a falcon, a girl and an elegant wolf pack,
about owls, weasels, foxes, prairie dogs, the alpine tundra, the tropical rain forest. And when the telling is done, I hope they will want to protect all the beautiful creatures and places.
ean Craighead George was born in a family of naturalists. Her father, mother, brothers, aunts
and uncles were students of nature. On weekends they camped in the woods near their Washington, D.C. home, climbed trees to study owls, gathered edible plants and made fish hooks
from twigs. Her first pet was a turkey vulture. In third grade she began writing and hasn't stopped yet. She has written over 100 books. 
Library Association's award for the most distinguished
contribution to literature for children, l973. My Side of the Mountain, the story of a boy and a falcon surviving on a mountain together, was a 1960 Newbery Honor Book. She has also
received 20 other awards.
When her children, Twig, Craig and Luke, were
old enough to carry their own backpacks, they all went to the animals. They climbed mountains, canoed rivers, hiked deserts. Her children learned about nature and Jean came home and to write
books. Craig and 
One summer Jean learned that the wolves were friendly, lived in a well-run society and communicated with each other in wolf talk -- sound, sight, posture, scent and coloration. Excited to learn
more, she took Luke and went to the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory in Barrow, Alaska, where scientists were studying this remarkable animal. She even talked to the wolves in their own language. With that
Julie of the Wolves was born. A little girl walking on the vast lonesome tundra outside Barrow, and a magnificent alpha male wolf, leader of a pack in Denali National Park were the inspiration for the
characters in the book. Years later, after many requests from her readers, she wrote the sequels, Julie and Julie's Wolf Pack.
