Jennifer Donnelly facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jennifer Donnelly
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Publicity photo for Revolution, 2010
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| Born | August 16, 1963 Port Chester, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Education | B.A., English Literature |
| Alma mater | University of Rochester |
| Period | 2002–present |
| Genre | Historical fiction, young adult fiction |
| Notable works |
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| Notable awards | Carnegie Medal 2003 LA Times Book Prize 2003 |
Jennifer Donnelly is an American author born on August 16, 1963. She is famous for her books, especially the young adult historical novel A Northern Light. This book is also known as A Gathering Light in the United Kingdom.
A Northern Light won the 2003 Carnegie Medal. This award celebrates the best children's book published that year in the UK. Later, for the Medal's 70th anniversary, it was chosen as one of the top ten winning books of all time. Time Magazine also named it one of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time in 2015.
Contents
About Jennifer Donnelly's Early Life
Jennifer Donnelly was born in Port Chester, New York. Her great-grandparents on her father's side came from Dublin, Ireland. They settled in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. Her grandmother worked at a hotel on Big Moose Lake, which later became the setting for A Northern Light.
Jennifer spent her childhood living in two different towns: Rye and Port Leyden, New York. She went to the University of Rochester and earned a degree in English Literature in 1985. She also studied in England at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Jennifer Donnelly's Writing Career
When Jennifer was 25, she moved back to New York and settled in Brooklyn. Her first book, Humble Pie, was a picture book published in 2002. It featured drawings by the artist Stephen Gammell.
First Novels and Trilogies
In 2002, Jennifer also published her first novel for older readers, The Tea Rose. This book is the first part of a trilogy (a series of three books). It is set in the East End of London in the late 1800s. The story even connects to the mystery of Jack the Ripper.
The second book in the series, The Winter Rose, continues the story of the Finnegan family. Their adventures take them from London to Africa and then to the coast of Northern California. The third novel, The Wild Rose, explores the story of characters named Willa and Seamie. Their journey goes from London just before World War I to Arabia in 1918.
A Northern Light and Its Success
Jennifer's second novel, A Northern Light, is based on a real event. It tells the story of the murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in the Adirondack Mountains in 1906. This true story also inspired other famous works, like the novel An American Tragedy and the 1951 movie A Place in the Sun.
In 2004, A Northern Light won the Carnegie Medal in Britain. In the U.S., it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for young adult literature. It was also a runner-up for the Printz Award, which honors the best book for young adults each year. As mentioned before, Time Magazine named it one of the best YA books of all time in 2015.
Revolution and Other Young Adult Books
Jennifer's second young adult novel is called Revolution. It tells the story of two teenage girls. One lives in present-day Brooklyn, and the other lives in Paris during the French Revolution. The book was published in 2010 and was very popular.
Revolution was nominated for a Carnegie Medal. It also appeared on many "best-of" lists from places like Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal. The audiobook version was a runner-up for the Odyssey Award. Jennifer said that Revolution was the hardest book she had ever written.
Disney Collaborations
From 2014 to 2016, Disney published Jennifer Donnelly's four-book series called Waterfire Saga. The books are Deep Blue, Rogue Wave, Dark Tide, and Sea Spell. This series won several awards, including the 2015 Green Earth Book Award. A song called "Open Your Eyes," sung by Bea Miller, was inspired by a chant from the first book, Deep Blue.
Jennifer worked with Disney again in 2017. She wrote Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, an original story that goes along with the 2017 Beauty and the Beast movie. This book explores the friendship between Belle and the Beast. It also tells about Belle's adventures inside a magical book called Nevermore. Lost in a Book was on the New York Times bestseller list for four months.
Historical and Fairy Tale Retellings
In 2018, Jennifer returned to writing historical fiction with Fatal Throne. This book is about King Henry VIII and his six wives. For this project, Jennifer worked with six other authors. Each author wrote the part of Henry or one of his wives. Jennifer wrote about Anne of Cleves, who was Henry's fourth wife.
In 2017, Jennifer announced a new project with Scholastic Publishing. It started with the book Stepsister in 2019. This story begins where the classic tale of Cinderella ends. It follows Cinderella's "wicked" stepsister, Isabelle. The story explores whether there can be hope for a girl who has always been called "ugly."
Stepsister was followed by Poisoned in 2020. This book is a new version of the Snow White fairy tale. Jennifer has said that a third fairy tale retelling is planned for 2024.
In 2023, she published Molly's Letter. This is the first of a series of shorter stories called Rose Petals. These stories are set in the same world as her Tea Rose series.
Awards and Recognitions
Jennifer Donnelly has won many awards for her books. She won the Carnegie Medal and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for A Northern Light. Both A Northern Light and Revolution also received other awards or were recognized as "Honor Books." They were also named to several important annual book lists.
- For A Northern Light (2003):
- Charlotte Award (New York State Reading Association)
- Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book
- American Library Association-YALSA Top Ten Best Book For Young Adults
- Booklist Editors' Choice
- Booklist Top Ten Youth First Novel
- Book Sense 76 Top Ten Books for Teens
- Junior Library Guild Selection
- New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
- Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
- School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
- Time Magazine Top 100 YA Books of All Time
- For Revolution (2010):
- New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year
- ALA Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production Honor
- American Booksellers Association Indies Choice Young Adult Book of the Year
- ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Book For Young Adults
- ALA Amelia Bloomer Book
- Amazon.com Best Book of the Year
- Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
- School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
- Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book
- Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book
- Carnegie Medal nominee
- For Deep Blue (2015):
- Green Book Award
- For Fatal Throne (2018):
- American Library Association-YALSA 2019 Best Fiction for Young Adults
- For Stepsister (2019):
- American Library Association-YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults
- American Library Association 2020 Amelia Bloomer Book List
- Seventeen Magazine - Best YA Books of 2019
- Bank Street College of Education 2020 Best Children's Books of the Year
- For Poisoned (2020):
- American Library Association-YALSA 2021 Best Fiction for Young Adults
- Bank Street College of Education 2021 Best Children's Books of the Year
Books by Jennifer Donnelly
- Humble Pie (Atheneum Books, 2002)
- The Tea Rose (Thomas Dunne Books, 2002)
- A Northern Light (Harcourt, 2003)
- The Winter Rose (Hyperion Books, 2008)
- Revolution (Penguin Random House/Delacorte Press, 2010)
- The Wild Rose (Hyperion, 2011)
- Deep Blue (Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2014)
- Rogue Wave (Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2015)
- Dark Tide (Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2015)
- These Shallow Graves (Penguin Random House/Delacorte Press, 2015)
- Sea Spell (Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2016)
- Lost in a Book (Disney Publishing Worldwide, 2017)
- Fatal Throne (Anna of Cleves Chapter) (Penguin Random House/Schwartz & Wade, 2018)
- Stepsister (Scholastic, 2019)
- Poisoned (Scholastic, 2020)
See also
In Spanish: Jennifer Donnelly para niños
