Newbery Medal winner Jean Craighead George has passed away. She was ninety-two-years-old.
George (pictured, via) enjoyed a career in children’s book publishing that spanned more than six decades. She won the Newbery for Julie of the Wolves in 1973. Next year, Penguin Young Readers Group will posthumously publish The Eagles are Back (the final installment of a picture book trilogy) and Ice Whale (a young adult novel written in collaboration with her son, Craig George).
Here’s more from her biography: “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.”