Linked with Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators SCBWI;
All it took was a semester abroad to convince Jane Buchanan ’96, that Russia was a place worth learning about, worth exploring, and maybe even worthy of a career. After graduating Summa Cum Laude as a Russian Language/Environmental Studies coordinate major, Buchanan wasted no time, relocating to Siberia where she lived for a year and a half, before enrolling in John Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 2000. During her two years spent at SAIS, Buchanan discovered her interest in human rights through several internships focused on the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. After graduating, Buchanan was awarded a one-year Research Fellowship at Human Rights Watch (HRW) in New York, where she conducted two research trips to Ukraine, meeting with victims of various human rights abuses, as well as conducting interviews with various non-governmental organizations and local government officials. Upon returning to New York, Buchanan wrote two reports regarding political censorship in the media in Ukraine, and the discrimination of women in employment. Both reports have since been used to confront the Ukrainian government and encourage the UN, EU, and other influential parties to take action … (full text).
… on answers.com:
- Jane Buchanan writes historical fiction set in the early twentieth century … ;
- Career: Former newspaper journalist; library director in Shutesbury, MA.;
- Biographical and Critical Sources;
Her Homepage.
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Jane Buchanan – USA
She says: « I grew up in Western Massachusetts where, as a child, I struggled with reading. It wasn’t until I was in college that we realized I am dyslexic. Fortunately for me, I had parents who were passionate about children’s books, and who loved to read aloud. My father’s idea of a great family vacation was to load up on books and pray for rain so that he could spend the whole time indoors reading to us while we worked on jigsaw puzzles » … (full text).
… Her novel Gratefully Yours tells the story of nine-year-old Hattie, a girl whose family was killed in a New York City fire. Hattie is one of many orphaned children put on board an « orphan train » bound for Nebraska. Hattie’s situation is based in reality; the orphan trains of the early twentieth century took homeless children from the crowded cities of the East to the farmlands of the Midwest, where couples without children might adopt them. Hattie is taken in by a farming couple, Elizabeth and Henry, who have lost their only child to smallpox. Cold and distant at first because of her loss, Elizabeth makes Hattie feel unwelcome in her new home. However, the death of a family cat in a snowstorm eventually brings the two together in their grief. A critic for Publishers Weekly called the story « quiet and sometimes strained, » but Susan Dove Lempke noted in Booklisfull textt that the inclusion of « historical details about Nebraska farm life are engaging, and children will sympathize with Hattie » … (full text).
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Find her and her publications on allBookstores; on her website/books.
The Google Book-search:
- Gratefully Yours, By Jane Buchanan, Published by Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997, ISBN 0374327750, 9780374327750, 117 pages: Three years earlier, Hattie’s entire family died in a tenement fire. Now, in 1923, she travels from New York to Nebraska to start over. But her beginning with Henry and Elizabeth Jansen is far from auspicious. The Jansens run a farm and need help because Elizabeth is bedridden. And Elizabeth is bedridden because of her own sadness over her son’s death and her daughter’s stillbirth. How can the Jansens possibly love an orphan? Still grief-stricken and bitter herself, Hattie hardly wins over the Jansens immediately. But as time passes, a bond develops, and a dramatic turn of events makes this clear to all. Beautifully written, Jane Buchanan’s first novel is a spare and sensitive story about adapting, both to loss and to a new way of life;
- Hank’s Story, By Jane Buchanan, Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001, ISBN 0374328366, 9780374328368, 134 pages: Sent to live on a farm in Nebraska, Hank and his brother leave the orphanage in New York to start life anew, yet the harsh treatment by his new family and the sudden departure of his brother leaves Hank with feelings of despair until he meets up with Ms. McIntire who gives him solace from his troubled world. By the author of Gratefully Yours.
- The Berry-picking Man, By Jane Buchanan, Published by Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003, ISBN 0374406103, 9780374406103, 96 pages: A story about empathy and charityNine-year-old Meggie hates Old Sam, the berry-picking man. He smells bad, he talks to himself, and, worst of all, he likes Meggie. She wishes her mother, a photographer, didn’t feel responsible for Old Sam, and especially that Mama didn’t involve Meggie in her charitable activities. Mama doesn’t bother Meggie’s sisters. Maybe it’s because they’re older. Meggie figures being the baby in the family must also be why she can’t have what she wants most, a camera of her own. As Christmas approaches, she longs for one, and when she finally opens her heart to Old Sam, Meggie earns her camera. Illustrated with poignant watercolor paintings, this is an unusual and thought-provoking story about a girl who discovers more than one common bond with her mother, and who wonders whether she is cursed or blessed;
- Goodbye, Charley,
By Jane Buchanan, Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, ISBN 0374350205, 9780374350208, 165 pages: Forming bonds in a time of warIt’s the summer of 1943, and for twelve-year-old Celie Marsh the war seems awfully close to her coastal Massachusetts home. She worries about bombs and submarines, and about her big brother, who can’t wait to go off and fight. Her little brother doesn’t seem to need her anymore, and her best friend has moved away. When her father brings Charley, a monkey, home from work one day, Celie finds the comforting companion she has been missing. But more upheaval is in store: irritating Joey Bentley moves in with his crabby grandmother next door, her mother takes a job building warships, and worst of all, Charley proves to be too wild for Celie to manage. A near disaster forces Celie to make a heart-wrenching decision that teaches her painful lessons about friendship, family, and the meaning of love. This tender novel about relationships, based on the author’s mother’s experience, is elegantly crafted and suffused with warmth, as well as with a powerful sense of time and place.
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Greenfield Public Library, MA 01301: Event on October 4, 2009;
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