Jane Kurtz

Jane Kurtz (born April 17, 1952) is an American writer of more than forty picture books, middle-grade novels, nonfiction, ready-to-reads, and books for educators. A member of the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA

Early life Kurtz was born in Portland, Oregon, to missionary parents, who moved the family to Ethiopia when she was two years old. Her parents, the Reverend Harold and Pauline (Polly) Kurtz, worked for the Presbyterian Church in Ethiopia for twenty-three years. in the country's far southwest. The journey up to Maji—usually in a Jeep—took all day to drive thirty-two miles. Sometimes the family traveled by mule, a two-day trip. Maji, at 8000 feet altitude, was where Jane first learned to read as Polly Kurtz homeschooled Kurtz and her sisters.

The family spent one year in Boise, Idaho when Kurtz was in second grade. After returning to Ethiopia, Kurtz was home schooled for one additional year before leaving Maji to attend fourth grade at Good Shepherd boarding school in Addis Ababa. She would remain at Good Shepherd through her junior year of high school, except for spending her eighth-grade year in Pasadena, California. One of her middle-grade novels, Jakarta Missing (Greenwillow/HarperCollins), is the fictional story of what it was like to leave East Africa to spend a teenage year in the United States.

Following in her parents' footsteps, Kurtz was admitted to Monmouth College (Illinois) after her junior year of high school and graduated in 1973 as a psychology major. At the time of graduation ceremonies, she was involved in a crash of a small plane piloted by her father, while visiting her family in Ethiopia. She spent about six months in a body cast before beginning her work life.

In Carbondale, Illinois, she worked at the Carbondale New School, a private alternative school for students in kindergarten through sixth grade, first as a writing teacher, next as director, and finally teaching a combined class of third- and fourth-graders. When her husband, the Reverend Leonard Goering, Fire on the Mountain was the first picture book illustrated by E.B. Lewis who went on to illustrate more than seventy books for children and to win the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award and Caldecott Honor Award. Fire on the Mountain received a starred review, was a Children's Book of the Month Club selection, and has remained in print for more than twenty years.

Kurtz's first middle-grade novel, The Storyteller's Beads

In 1997, Kurtz returned to Ethiopia after having been away for twenty years. That spring, she was invited to conduct author visits at the International Community School, Bingham Academy, and Sandford International School. After completing the author visits, she traveled to Lalibela and Gondar, a trip that would later lead to Kurtz's writing of a historical fiction middle-grade novel for American Girl, Saba: Under the Hyena's Foot, set in 1846 when Gondar was in decline as the Ethiopian capital.

When she returned to North Dakota, she was only home a few days before she and her family had to leave their house that was in the first neighborhood to be evacuated during the 1997 Red River flood. They spent six weeks in Walhalla, North Dakota, during which time Kurtz flew to Atlanta to be part of a presentation at the International Reading Association, speaking about the power of encouraging children to capture their real lives through the rhythms and imagery of poetry, a practice she began at the Carbondale New School and continued during years of Writer in the Schools projects.

Shortly after returning to clean up the house she and her own children had lived in since they had moved to Grand Forks, she created what became the picture book River Friendly River Wild (Simon & Schuster), the text of which won the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Kurtz also drew on her flood memories for tornado scenes in her 2013 novel Anna Was Here (Greenwillow/HarperCollins). She often describes that novel as "a story of life's big questions and a few puny answers." A reviewer in the New York Times called it "sweetly funny" and "a moving-day classic, destined to sidestep its boxed-up brethren for the important job of steadying someone's shaky little hands."

Kurtz has been invited to speak in forty states of the United States and in various countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Her presentations are often praised for their wittiness, their ability to connect with young writers, and their emphasis on the life-changing power of reading. She was also invited to be part of "Laura Bush Celebrates America's Authors," a day of literacy celebration prior to U.S. President George W. Bush's 2001 inauguration, during which fourteen children's book authors were honored and then conducted presentations in Washington D.C. schools.

In April 2008, when Kurtz was performing author visits in Indonesia and Cambodia, she was contacted by an editor at American Girl about writing two books to be sold with Lanie, American Girl Doll of the Year 2010. Inspired by the students at Pasir Ridge International School in Palikpapan, Indonesia, who provide support for the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, Kurtz created a secondary character, Dakota, Lanie's best friend, who goes to Indonesia and works with orangutans. In 2011, Kurtz returned to the Pasir Ridge International School to show the students the book that had been partially inspired by them. One student wrote, "I would like to help animals, but I can’t help these." He then listed his favorites and the reasons he couldn't help them. A seal? Too far. A snake? Too scary. A lion? Too strong. A penguin? Too far. He concluded that he had been inspired to catch krill, an important part of the food web, and ended, "Even poor people can help animals."

Kurtz wrote the books Lanie and Lanie's Real Adventures Only a Pigeon with Christopher Kurtz; illustrations by E. B. Lewis (picture book) 1997 Trouble with illustrations by Durga Bernhard (picture book) 1997 The Storyteller's Beads with illustrations by Michael Bryant (juvenile novel) 1998 River Friendly, River Wild Saba: Under the Hyena's Foot with illustrations by Jean-Paul Tibbles (young adult novel) 2003, Pleasant/American Girl, ISBN 978-1-58485-829-4 Mister Bones: Dinosaur Hunter with illustrations by Mary Haverfield (easy reader) 2004 Do Kangaroos Wear Seat Belts? with illustrations by Jane Manning (picture book) 2005, Dutton, ISBN 978-0-525-47358-9 In the Small, Small Night with illustrations by Rachel Isadora (picture book) 2005, Greenwillow/Amistad, ISBN 978-0-06-623814-2 What Columbus Found: It Was Orange, It Was Round with illustrations by Paige Billin-Frye (easy reader) 2007 Martin's Dream (easy reader) 2008 Anna Was Here (middle-grade novel) 2013 Celebrating Ohio: 50 States to Celebrate with illustrations by C.B. Canga (picture book) 2015 Celebrating Pennsylvania: 50 States to Celebrate with illustrations by C.B. Canga (picture book) 2015 Celebrating New Jersey: 50 States to Celebrate with illustrations by C.B. Canga (picture book) 2015 Celebrating Georgia: 50 States to Celebrate with illustrations by C.B. Canga (picture book) 2015 Planet Jupiter (young adult novel) 2017

Awards 2001, Golden Kite Award, (for best picture book text) by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators 2005, Year's Best Books and Year's Best Children's Books, by The Washington Post for In the Small, Small Night 2022, IBBY-iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award by the United States Board on Books for Young People