Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon and The Devil's Arithmetic, dies at 87
One of America's most prolific children's writers, Yolen published some 450 books, including a Caldecott winner and a Holocaust novel still taught in classrooms.
Jane Yolen, the children's author whose books have been read aloud in homes and classrooms for more than six decades, died on June 11, 2026, at her home in Hatfield, Massachusetts. She was 87. Born in New York City in 1939 to a Jewish family, Yolen graduated from Smith College in 1960 and sold her first book, a nonfiction title called Pirates in Petticoats, on her 22nd birthday. By the end of her life her family counted about 450 published books, the last of them released in 2026.
Her range was unusually wide: picture books, novels, poetry, fairy tales, fantasy, graphic novels, cookbooks and music books. Owl Moon, her 1987 story of a child and father searching for an owl on a winter night, won the Caldecott Medal for its illustrations by John Schoenherr. Her How Do Dinosaurs... series became a fixture in preschools. In fantasy and science fiction she won a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy lifetime achievement award, and she served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America in the late 1980s. Admirers often called her America's Hans Christian Andersen.
Yolen did not grow up in an observant home, and she initially hesitated when an editor urged her to write a Jewish book. The result was The Devil's Arithmetic (1988), in which a modern American girl at a Passover seder is transported to a Polish village and then a Nazi camp. The novel became one of the most widely taught introductions to the Holocaust for young readers, was adapted into an Emmy-winning television film, and has stayed in print ever since. She returned to the subject in Briar Rose and Mapping the Bones, and wrote Jewish-themed books for younger children, several with her daughter, Heidi Stemple.
Beyond her own writing, Yolen was a generous mentor. She joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators at its founding in 1971, and a grant for mid-career authors bears her name. A writing contest named for her has run for more than 40 years at the elementary school in her hometown. She left about a dozen books under contract and many finished manuscripts.
“Whenever we think of the Holocaust, we think of remembering.”
Yolen helped millions of children learn to love reading, and The Devil's Arithmetic gave generations of students a humane, age-appropriate entry point to the history of the Holocaust. Her mentorship and the grants and scholarships in her name will continue to support new writers.
Sources
- Jane Yolen, children's book author whose 'The Devil's Arithmetic' became a Holocaust classic, dies at 87Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 12, 2026
- 'She wrote with joy': Author Jane Yolen, who wrote more than 450 books, dies at 87Daily Hampshire Gazette, June 15, 2026
Summarised in our own words from the reporting above.
Tikkun olam, today. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.