Jean Craighead George 1919-2012

Titles include over 100 youth and children's books:

           My Side of the Mountain/On the Far Side of the
           Mountain/Frightful's Mountain
           Julie of the Wolves/Julie/Julie's Wolfpack
           Ecological Mystery Series  (Case of the Missing
           Cutthroat/Who Really Killed Cock Robin/
           Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo)
           There's an Owl in the Shower
           Charlie's Raven
           The Tarantula in My Purse and 172 Other Wild Pets

Audience:  3rd Grade and up for chapter books
                   Preschool and up for picture books

Rating:  **  (2 stars out of 3 possible, "B")
             Recommended

From time to time I need to locate a large number of books to keep my 6th grader busy and happy.  Generally this occurs during the summer and any school vacations/early releases.  This past spring seemed an ideal time to check out 12-15 Jean Craighead George books.  We had already read My Side of the Mountain together which I remembered as one of the few books from my childhood I could enjoy over and over.

My Side of the Mountain, sometimes called a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, fascinated me because it plausibly presented a situation where a young teenager could move to the wild and successfully fend for himself.  I was briefly obsessed with the idea of living in the woods:  fashioning my own fishhooks and leather breeches, grinding acorns for pancakes, taming wild animals to keep me company.  I lived in northern Minnesota at the time, so it didn't seem too much of a stretch for the imagination.

The difference was, Jean Craighead George grew up exploring and camping with a family of naturalists, so she had a lot more real-life experience from which to draw.  Her father was an entomologist for the USFS and her brothers went on to become famous grizzly researchers at the University of Montana.  George herself went on to receive degrees in English and science and gained more outdoor training when she married her ornithologist husband.  They divorced after 19 years, but George never tired of natural learning and self-study.  She spent extended time at the Arctic Research Laboratory in Barrow, Alaska which would form the basis of her Julie series.  Her three children have gone on to science and writing fields.

In the Mountain trilogy, young Sam Gribley, encouraged by his parents, leaves his New York City family behind to live on their historic homestead in upstate New York.  He confidently prepares to be self-sufficient and ably adapts to his environment, although he does suffer a few bouts of cold and hunger.

I loved the stories of Sam burning out a home in a large hemlock tree, scavenging a hapless hunter's deer for leather clothes, and most of all, capturing a peregrine falcon fledgling for training and hunting.  Re-reading it as an adult last year, I did find some parts unbelievable, but my daughter was as captivated as I had been at her age.

She went on to read the rest of the Mountain trilogy, as well as the Julie trilogy and the other books listed above.  We especially enjoyed George's autobiography The Tarantula in My Purse where she raises her 3 children surrounded by wild pets and their entertaining stories, including a family owl who truly loves the shower!

Readers may notice adults are sometimes absent in George's books.  These are stories where teens are generally self-possessed and self-sufficient.  But, in the case of Sam's parents, the adults are encouraging and trustworthy.  Others may be suspicious of the environmental focus of many of the books, but I find these books offer good discussion points for families.  For more of an overview on environmental issues in contemporary children's literature, click here.

Ms. George passed away at the age of 92 in May of 2012.  Among her many accolades, she received a Newbery Honor for My Side of the Mountain and the Newbery Medal for Julie of the Wolves.