Jane Kurtz facts for kids

Jane Kurtz was born on April 17, 1952. She is an American writer who has created over thirty books. Her books include picture books, novels for middle schoolers, and non-fiction. She also writes books for teachers.

Jane Kurtz is a professor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She teaches writing for children and adults. She also works to help more people learn to read and write around the world. Jane helped start a group called Ethiopia Reads. This group has opened more than seventy libraries for children. They have also published books and built four schools in rural Ethiopia.

Jane Kurtz's Early Life

Jane Kurtz was born in Portland, Oregon. When she was two years old, her parents moved the family to Ethiopia. Her parents, Harold and Pauline Kurtz, worked there for the Presbyterian Church for 23 years.

After learning the local language in Addis Ababa, her family moved to Maji, Ethiopia. This was in the far southwest of the country. The trip to Maji often took a whole day by Jeep. Sometimes they traveled by mule, which took two days. Maji was at 8,000 feet high. Here, Jane first learned to read. Her mother, Polly Kurtz, taught Jane and her sisters at home.

The family spent one year in Boise, Idaho, when Jane was in second grade. After returning to Ethiopia, Jane was homeschooled for another year. Then she went to Good Shepherd boarding school in Addis Ababa for fourth grade. She stayed at this school until her junior year of high school. She spent her eighth-grade year in Pasadena, California. Her novel, Jakarta Missing, is a story about leaving East Africa. It shows what it was like to spend a teenage year in the United States.

Jane Kurtz went to Monmouth College in Illinois. She graduated in 1973 with a degree in psychology. During her graduation time, she was in a small plane crash with her father in Ethiopia. She spent about six months recovering.

Later, she worked at the Carbondale New School in Carbondale, Illinois. She taught writing and was the school director. She also taught third and fourth graders. When her husband got a job in Trinidad, Colorado, she taught English at Trinidad Catholic High School for five years. She also led a group that helped develop downtown Trinidad. She was part of the Colorado Council on the Arts. Then she moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota. There, she earned her master's degree in English. She also taught as a senior lecturer at the university.

Jane Kurtz's Writing Career

Jane Kurtz loved reading and talking about books with young people. This made her want to write her own stories. Her first picture book was I’m Calling Molly. She got the idea for it by watching her son play with a neighbor.

For her second picture book, Fire on the Mountain, Jane used stories from her childhood in Ethiopia. This book was the first one illustrated by E.B. Lewis. He later illustrated many children's books and won major awards. Fire on the Mountain was very popular and has been in print for over twenty years.

Jane Kurtz's first novel for middle schoolers was The Storyteller's Beads. This book shows what life was like in Ethiopia during a time of conflict called the "red terror". Many people faced danger and war. The novel is based on real events. During the 1970s and 1980s, many Ethiopians had to flee to refugee camps in Sudan. Thousands of Jewish Ethiopians were flown to Israel in special flights like Operation Moses. Jane was inspired to write the story after reading about these journeys.

She has also written picture books about the beauty of Ethiopia. One is Water Hole Waiting, which she wrote with her brother Christopher Kurtz. Another book they wrote together is Only a Pigeon. This is a true story about a shoeshine boy who became friends with her brother. Christopher had returned to Ethiopia to teach at a girls’ school.

In 1997, Jane returned to Ethiopia after twenty years. She visited schools in Addis Ababa to talk about her books. After her visits, she traveled to Lalibela and Gondar. This trip inspired her to write Saba: Under the Hyena's Foot. This historical novel for American Girl is set in 1846, when Gondar was no longer the capital of Ethiopia.

Soon after returning to North Dakota, Jane and her family had to leave their home. Their neighborhood was evacuated during the 1997 Red River flood. They stayed away for six weeks. During this time, Jane flew to Atlanta for a presentation. She spoke about how writing poetry can help children share their real-life experiences. She had started this practice while teaching at the Carbondale New School.

After cleaning up her flooded house, she wrote the picture book River Friendly River Wild. The text for this book won the Golden Kite Award. Jane also used her flood memories for tornado scenes in her 2013 novel Anna Was Here. She describes this novel as a story about "life's big questions." The New York Times called it "sweetly funny" and a "moving-day classic."

Jane Kurtz has been invited to speak in many places. She has visited forty U.S. states and countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. People often praise her presentations for being witty and connecting with young writers. She emphasizes how reading can change lives. In 2001, she was part of "Laura Bush Celebrates America's Authors." This event honored children's book authors before U.S. President George W. Bush's inauguration.

In 2008, Jane was visiting schools in Indonesia and Cambodia. An editor from American Girl asked her to write two books for the Lanie doll. Students at a school in Indonesia inspired Jane. These students supported the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. So, Jane created a character named Dakota. Dakota is Lanie's best friend and works with orangutans in Indonesia. In 2011, Jane returned to the school to show the students the book they had inspired. One student wrote about wanting to help animals but feeling unable to. He then realized that "Even poor people can help animals."

Jane wrote the books Lanie and Lanie's Real Adventures while living in Lawrence, Kansas. Her son and daughter-in-law were attending the University of Kansas there. She decided to create a character who helps save monarch butterflies. She learned about Monarch Watch, a group of students, teachers, and volunteers who study monarchs in Lawrence.

Major Works by Jane Kurtz

Awards and Honors

• 2001: Golden Kite Award for best picture book text, from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators
• 2001: Best-of-the-Year Award from School Library Journal for Water Hole Waiting
• 2005: Year's Best Books from The Washington Post for In the Small, Small Night
• 2010: Book of the Year from American Girl for Lanie's Real Adventures
• 2011: Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota
• 2014: SEED Honor for helping start Ethiopia Reads, from the Society of Ethiopians Established in Diaspora
• 2015: Nominated for the 2015–2016 South Carolina Children's Book Awards for Anna Was Here