Fantasy and children’s author Jane Yolen is the subject of “A Life in Books” in the 2 June 2008 issue of Newsweek. As readers of the regular feature know, there is a brief bio of the author along with a photo, and then she lists “My Five Most Important Books” along with a sentence explaining why each made the list. Yolen’s five include: Moby Dick by Herman Melville; Winter’s Tales by Isak Dinesen; The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson; Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak; and The Great Stink by Clare Clark. Yolen also presents the book she hopes parents will read to their kids—The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber—and a classic she revisited with disappointment—The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Yolen is the winner of two Caledcott Medals, two Nebula Awards, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, one World Fantasy Award, and a host of others. In addition, she was the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 1986 to 1988. “A Life in Books” is a weekly feature, appearing in the “Periscope” section of Newsweek.