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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
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33607000868391 | Holiday Picture Books | YOLEN | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Author Notes
Jane Yolen was born February 11, 1939 in New York City. She received a bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1960 and a master's degree in education from the University of Massachusetts in 1976. After college, she became an editor in New York City and wrote during her lunch break. She sold her first children's book, Pirates in Petticoats, at the age of 22. Since then, she has written over 300 books for children, young adults, and adults.
Her other works include the Emperor and the Kite, Owl Moon, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and The Devil's Arithmetic. She has won numerous awards including the Kerlan Award, the Regina Medal, the Keene State Children's Literature Award, the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, two Christopher Medals, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, the Golden Kite Award, the Jewish Book Award, the World Fantasy Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Association of Jewish Libraries Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6John McDonough's compelling voice illuminates Jane Yolen's (Harcourt, 1994) simple story about good and evil. Beautiful Griselle has lived alone since her soldier husband disappeared in action. She fills her life with making lace and caring for the woodland animals and birds that come to her yard. She has won the love and respect of the stone angels on the cathedral wall, and the rancor of the gargoyles who propose a wager. The gargoyles bet the angels that they can cause Griselle to act with cruelty. A gargoyle child appears on Griselle's doorstep, the ugliest and most ill-behaved child anyone could imagine. Griselle loves him, expressing her gratitude for his company. As a final test, a dashing soldier appears at Griselle's door claiming to be her long lost husband. When this man prepares to beat the child, Griselle receives the blow herself and turns the soldier away. The boy is transformed through Griselle's love, and when he dies years later he takes his place with the angels on the cathedral wall. This reading adds a moving dimension to the story.Marcia Brightman, Mark's Meadow Laboratory School, Amherst, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Yolen reaches new heights in this flawless tale. Patterned after the story of Job, it concerns one Griselle, a lace maker in Paris of long ago. Reports of her goodness so enrage the gargoyles on a nearby cathedral that they place a wager one Christmas Eve with their holy counterparts, the stone angels. Their bet? To test Griselle's goodness by thrusting upon her "an ugly and unlovable child." The angels consent, and the gargoyles send a hideous, squalling imp to the woman's doorstep. Though the foundling tests her sorely indeed, Griselle proves faithful, and in a particularly poignant ending, her place in heaven and that of her homely but much loved son are assured. The prose is lush but exquisitely restrained, and moves to the measured cadences of another, more gracious era. The story creates new opportunities for Christiana's (White Nineteens) brooding, mysterious watercolor art. Part impressionist, part Arthur Rackham, wholly original, rendered largely in shades of gray but with an occasional touch of color, the illustrations reveal a world where crouching gargoyles hint of dark purposes and the shadowed and oblique are infinitely more intriguing than the overt. In a word, heavenly. Ages 7-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved