An iris called "Fantasy." Walter Marx Gardens. Boring, Oregon. 1951. Catalog.

https://people.com/jane-yolen-author-of-450-childrens-books-dies-at-87-11996432

If you didn’t become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel novella “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” it’s likely you will once you become a parent, reading one of her many, many, many books for kids. My young boys are especially partial to her “How Do Dinosaurs?” series with its captivating, realistic dinosaur illustrations and snappy, funny text (and yes, there’s a Hanukkah “How Do Dinosaurs” book).

The prolific children’s book author, who was the recipient of multiple children’s book awards and six honorary doctorates, passed away this week at age 87. She was just about to release her 450th book. “Monsters of Fife: Terror Birds” will come out posthumously on July 14.

Yolen wasn’t raised particularly Jewish, and her exposure to religion was mostly at relatives’ homes, she recounted in a piece for the Jewish Book Council. As a teen, she did become fascinated with Jewish texts and traditions, getting confirmed at her local Reform synagogue; she was one of the first girls to read from the Torah on the bimah at that temple. And she minored in religious studies at Smith College.

But it took a while for Judaism to become part of her children’s book-writing career. In fact, she was two decades into her career when she got “noodged” into writing Jewish tales.

It all happened in the 1980s, she wrote in her essay for the Jewish Book Council: “One of my edi­tors, who hap­pened to be a rabbi’s wife, asked me why I had nev­er writ­ten a Jew­ish book. And I had to think long and hard about that. And she noodged. Boy! Was she an expert noodge. The result was ‘The Devil’s Arith­metic.’ And then the Jew­ish sto­ries began to tum­ble out.”

The books that came tumbling out were as gripping and wonderful and magical as the rest of her oeuvre.

There came magical stories about Jews and dragons and golems (co-written with her son, Adam Stemple).

She published illustrated books about Miriam and other biblical women (and even the children’s book adaptation of the famous “Prince of Egypt”).

She came up with her own twist on the tales of the Wise Men of Chelm.

She perhaps became most known for her three young adult tomes that tackle the Holocaust in novel ways. She wrote the “Sleeping Beauty” inspired “Briar Rose” and the “Hansel and Gretel”-esque “Mapping the Bones.” And of course, she penned the Nebula Prize Winning “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” about a Jewish teen who finds herself transported to 1942 Poland, which continues to be taught in schools to this very day, even as one Texas school district pulled it out of the curriculum for AI-detected “DEI content.” The book was famously turned into a 1999 film starring Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, Paul Freeman and Mimi Rogers.

Yolen also wrote books about Jewish holidays: “Milk and Honey,” and the lovely “Jewish Tale Feasts” (with her daughter, author Heidi Stemple), a book that my Jewish food-loving family adores.

Heidi, Adam and their brother Jason were all by their mother’s side when she “passed gently with no pain or stress,” Heidi shared on Instagram. Adam was playing his music while Heidi read from her mother’s book “Owl Moon.”

“As you all probably know, she had one of the most brilliant creative minds of our time,” Heidi wrote of her mother. “She has mentored, inspired and nurtured so many authors and illustrators through her words both on the page and off. But, beyond that, she was our mother and grandmother.”