Fritz, Jean

Jean Fritz, nee Guttery, was born November 16, 1915 in Hanlow, China, where her father worked as a missionary. She grew up hearing his stories of American history and the country's heroes and these tales would later affect her writing career. Jean Fritz came to the United States and graduated from Wheaton College in 1937. She worked as a research assistant and children's librarian and in 1954 wrote her first book for children, Bunny Hopwell's First Spring . Jean Fritz continued to write fiction for children, including a number of historical novels that were widely praised for their authenticity and period detail as well as believeable characters and plots. In the 1970s, she begin writing historical biographies, focusing mainly on American Revolutionary War figures such as John Hancock, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, and Ben Franklin. Her biographies have been widely praised by critics for their realism, careful research, and informative and entertaining style. She has also written other biographies dealing with other historical figures. Jean Fritz drew on her own childhood in China for one of her books, Homesick, My Own Story (1982), an autobiographical work that was a Newbery Honor Book in 1983. Biographical Sources: Something About the Author, vol. 72, p. 71-75 Twentieth Century Children's Writers, 3rd ed., p. 363-364