Jean fritz biography
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Jean Fritz
American children's writer (–)
Jean Guttery Fritz (November 16, – May 14, ) was an American children's writer best known for American biography and history. She won the Children's Legacy Literature Award for her career contribution to American children's literature in [1] She turned in November [2] and died in May at the age of [3]
Early life
[edit]Fritz was born to American Presbyterian missionaries Arthur Minton Guttery and the former Myrtle Chaney in Hankow, China, where she lived until she was twelve.[4][3] Growing up, she attended a British school and kept a journal about her days in China with her amah, Lin Nai-Nai. The family emigrated to the United States when she was in eighth grade.[5]
She graduated from Wheaton College in Massachusetts in and married Michael Fritz in They had two children, David and Andrea.[6]
Career
[edit]Fritz's writing career started with the publication of
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"History isn't boring, once you get to know the people," says children's author Jean Fritz. "In my writing, I give people their place." In the last fifty years Fritz has written about many of the major figures in U.S. history, from Benjamin Franklin to Harriet Beecher Stowe to Teddy Roosevelt.
Fritz worries that children do not find history interesting because there is too much emphasis on memorizing facts. "You have to learn it all factually," she says, "but you have to feel it, too. So you teach about how Mrs. Madison took down a portrait of Washington, cut it out of the frame and saved it before the British burned the White House."
These are the kinds of stories Fritz includes in her biographies and histories. Shh, We're Writing the Constitution captures the personalities of the Founding Fathers and the difficulties they faced as they met in Philadelphia in the hot summer of to draft the constitution. In And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?, Fritz helps readers to visualize
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Jean (Guttery) Fritz () Biography
Born , in Hankow, China; moved to United States c. ; Education: Wheaton College, A.B., ; attended Columbia University. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, traveling.
Addresses
Agent—Gina MacCoby Literary Agency, Broadway, Ste. , New York, NY
Career
Writer of historical biographies and novels for young people. Silver Burdett Co., New York, NY, research assistant, ; Dobbs Ferry Library, Dobbs Ferry, NY, children's librarian, ; Jean Fritz Writers' Workshops, Katonah, NY, founder and instructor, ; Board of Co-operative Educational Service, Westchester County, NY, teacher, ; Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, faculty member, summer, Lecturer.
Honors Awards
New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citations, , for And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?, , for Why Don't You Get a Horse, Sam Adams?, , for Where Was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May?, , for What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?, , for Traitor: The Case of