Jean was born on July 2, 1919 in Washington, DC. She attended the Alice Deal Middle School and the Woodrow Wilson High School. Looking back at her papers she was always involved in the Year book, dance, art and theater. She graduated from Penn State University 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 (read "Quick as a Camera"). After her children were born she returned to her love of nature and brought owls, robins, mink, sea gulls, and 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. 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 continued to write books. Craig is now a retired bowhead whale scientist, Luke is a professor at Colorado State University and Twig writes children's books and is a retired children's librarian.. One summer Jean learned that 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. She continued to travel and return home to write. In the last decades, she added two new dimensions to her words, the beautiful full-color picture book art by Wendell Minor and musical theater. Jean enjoyed collaborating with musicians and composers to bring the sounds of nature to her words. (from author's website)
