Jennifer Donnelly

Last updated
Jennifer Donnelly
Jen door 4 043.JPG
Publicity photo for Revolution, 2010
Born (1963-08-16) August 16, 1963 (age 61)
Port Chester, New York, U.S.
Occupation Novelist
EducationB.A., English Literature
Alma mater University of Rochester
Period2002–present
Genre Historical fiction, young adult fiction
Notable works
Notable awards Carnegie Medal
2003
LA Times Book Prize
2003
Website
jenniferdonnelly.com

Jennifer Donnelly (born August 16, 1963) is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light .

Contents

A Northern Light was published as A Gathering Light in the U.K. [a] There, it won the 2003 Carnegie Medal, recognizing the year's outstanding children's book. [2] [3] For the 70th anniversary of the Medal a few years later, it was named one of the top ten winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favorite. [1] Similarly, it was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time in 2015. [4]

Early life

Donnelly was born in Port Chester, New York. Her paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Dublin, Ireland to New York state and settled in the Adirondack region where her grandmother worked at a hotel on Big Moose Lake, the setting for A Northern Light. Donnelly's own childhood was divided between the communities of Rye and Port Leyden, New York. [ citation needed ]

Donnelly attended the University of Rochester, where she earned a degree in English Literature in 1985. [5] She also attended Birkbeck College, University of London, in England. [6]

Career

Donnelly returned to New York at age 25, moving to Brooklyn. Her first book was published by Atheneum in 2002: Humble Pie, a picture book with the veteran illustrator Stephen Gammell. That year she also published her first novel. The Tea Rose (Thomas Dunne, 2002) is the first book of a trilogy set in the East End of London late in the 19th century, with ties to the story of Jack the Ripper. The second book, The Winter Rose, continues the tale, following the Finnegan family and related characters from London to Africa to the coast of Northern California. The third novel in the series, The Wild Rose, which explores Willa and Seamie's story, follows the characters from London on the verge of World War I to Arabia in 1918.

Her second novel, A Northern Light, is based on the murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in the Adirondack Mountains in 1906 - which had been the basis for Theodore Dreiser's epic An American Tragedy and its adaptation, the 1951 film A Place in the Sun .

In 2004, A Northern Light won the Carnegie Medal for children's and young-adult books published in Britain [2] [3] - where it was entitled A Gathering Light [a] and may have been her first work published in the U.K. [b] In the U.S., it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for young-adult literature [7] and was a runner-up for the Printz Award from the American Library Association (ALA), recognizing the year's best book for young adults. [8] In 2015, Time Magazine named A Northern Light one of the best YA books of all time. [4]

Her second young-adult novel, Revolution , is a tale of two teenage girls, one in present-day Brooklyn, and one in Paris during the French Revolution. The book was published in October, 2010 by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, with a first run of 250,000 copies. [9] The book was nominated for a Carnegie Medal, and appeared on a number of "best-of" lists, including Kirkus Reviews, [10] School Library Journal, [11] Amazon.com, [12] BN.com, [13] ALA-YALSA, [14] among others. The audiobook edition from Listening Library, read by Emily Janice Card and Emma Bering, was a runner-up for the ALA's annual Odyssey Award. Donnelly was "captivated and amazed" by the rendition of what she calls "the hardest book I've written". [15] [16]

From 2014-2016, Disney published Donnelly's four-book Waterfire Saga (Deep Blue, Rogue Wave, Dark Tide and Sea Spell), which have won numerous awards including the Nature Generation's 2015 Green Earth Book Award. [17] The song "Open Your Eyes", released by Hollywood Records and sung by Bea Miller, was drawn from the chant sung by the river witches in Deep Blue. [18] [19]

Donnelly worked with Disney again in 2017, when she published Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, an original story to accompany the Beauty and the Beast film. Lost in a Book expands on the film, exploring the friendship between Belle and the Beast as well as Belle's time within the pages of Nevermore, a magical book from which she narrowly escapes. Lost in a Book spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list, [20] and rights have been sold in 11 countries. [21]

Donnelly returned to historical fiction with Fatal Throne, a book about Henry VIII and his six wives published by Random House/Schwartz & Wade in May 2018. For this project, Donnelly joined six other authors (Candace Fleming, M.T. Anderson, Stephanie Hemphill, Deborah Hopkinson, Linda Sue Park, and Lisa Ann Sandell), each of whom wrote the part of Henry or one of his wives. [22] Donnelly wrote Anne of Cleves, Henry's fourth wife. [23]

In September 2017, Donnelly announced a new multi-book project with Scholastic Publishing beginning with 2019's Stepsister. The story begins where the classic tale of Cinderella leaves off and follows her wicked stepsister Isabelle as "personifications of fate and chance battle for control of her life, hinting that there may be hope after all for a girl labeled ugly since her first appearances in literature". [24] "Stepsister" was followed in 2020 by Poisoned, a retelling of the Snow White fairy tale. Donnelly has said a third fairy tale retelling is in the works and will be published in early 2024, [25] but details are not yet available. Motion Picture rights for Stepsister and Poisoned have been acquired by Endeavor Content. [26] [27]

In 2023, she published Molly's Letter, the first in a series of novella-length stories called Rose Petals set in the world of her three-volume Tea Rose series. [28]

Awards and nominations

Donnelly won the Carnegie Medal [2] [3] and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize [7] for A Northern Light. Both A Northern Light and Revolution won other awards or were runners-up (often called Honor Books in the U.S.) and both were named to several annual book lists:

A Northern Light (2003)

Revolution (2010)

Deep Blue (2015)

Fatal Throne (2018)

Stepsister (2019)

Poisoned (2020)

Works

Notes

  1. 1 2 Northern Lights (Scholastic UK, 1995) by Philip Pullman had been published in the U.S. as The Golden Compass (Knopf, 1996); thus, only one Northern Light(s) title was used on each continent. Both novels won the annual British Carnegie Medal (which opened before 2003 to American authors who co-publish in the U.K.), and both were named one of the top ten Medal-winning books for the 70th anniversary. [1]
  2. ↑ The Carnegie panel recommended A Gathering Light for ages 12 and up and selected it as one of six finalists in April 2004, when its press release called her "American first time novelist Jennifer Donnelly" ("Shortlist for the CILIP Carnegie Medal announced"). It may have been her first book published internationally. When she won the Medal three months later, CILIP wrote that "her first book 'Tea Rose' was published in Spring 2003" after it was "rejected by nearly every publishing house in New York" ("Background on Jennifer Donnelly and A Gathering Light"). [3]

Related Research Articles

The Carnegie Medal for Writing, established in 1936, is a British literary award that annually recognises one outstanding new English-language book for children or young adults. It is conferred upon the author by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), who calls it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing". CILIP is currently partnered with the audio technology company Yoto in connection with the award.

The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award was a literary award that annual recognised one fiction book written for children or young adults and published in the United Kingdom. It was conferred upon the author of the book by The Guardian newspaper, which established it in 1965 and inaugurated it in 1967. It was a lifetime award in that previous winners were not eligible. At least from 2000 the prize was £1,500. The prize was apparently discontinued after 2016, though no formal announcement appears to have been made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Stroud</span> British author

Jonathan Anthony Stroud is a British writer of fantasy fiction, best known for the Bartimaeus young adult sequence and Lockwood & Co. children's series. His books are typically set in an alternative history London with fantasy elements, and have received note for his satire, and use of magic to reflect themes of class struggle. The Bartimaeus sequence is the recipient of the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire and Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards. Stroud's works have also been featured on ALA Notable lists of books for children and young adults. In 2020, Netflix announced a TV series based on Lockwood & Co., with filming initiated in July 2021.

The Michael L. Printz Award is an American Library Association literary award that annually recognizes the "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit". It is sponsored by Booklist magazine; administered by the ALA's young-adult division, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA); and named for the Topeka, Kansas, school librarian Mike Printz, a long-time active member of YALSA. Up to four worthy runners-up may be designated Honor Books and three or four have been named every year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Almond</span> British childrens writer (born 1951)

David Almond is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Creech</span> American writer (born 1945)

Sharon Creech is an American writer of children's novels. She was the first American winner of the Carnegie Medal for British children's books and the first person to win both the American Newbery Medal and the British Carnegie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aidan Chambers</span> British author (born 1934)

Aidan Chambers is a British author of children's and young-adult novels. He won both the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award for Postcards from No Man's Land (1999). For his "lasting contribution to children's literature" he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.

<i>A Northern Light</i> 2003 novel by Jennifer Donnelly

A Northern Light, or A Gathering Light in the U.K., is an American historical novel for young adults, written by Jennifer Donnelly and published by Harcourt in 2003. Set in northern Herkimer County, New York in 1906, it is based on the murder of Grace Brown case —the basis also for An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (1925).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Markus Zusak</span> Australian writer

Markus Zusak is an Australian writer. He is best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger, two novels that became international bestsellers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award in 2014.

<i>Postcards from No Mans Land</i> 1999 young adult novel by Aidan Chambers

Postcards from No Man's Land is a young-adult novel by Aidan Chambers, published by Bodley Head in 1999. Two stories are set in Amsterdam during 1994 and 1944. One features 17-year-old visitor Jacob Todd during the 50-year commemoration of the Battle of Arnhem, in which his grandfather fought; the other features 19-year-old Geertrui late in the German occupation of the Netherlands. It was the fifth of six novels in the series Chambers calls "The Dance Sequence", which he inaugurated in 1978 with Breaktime.

The Margaret A. Edwards Award is an American Library Association (ALA) literary award that annually recognizes an author and "a specific body of his or her work, for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". It is named after Margaret A. Edwards (1902–1988), the longtime director of young adult services at Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

Stephanie Kuehn is an American author of young adult fiction, best known for her William C. Morris Award-winning debut novel Charm & Strange, Delicate Monsters, and Complicit. Her novels often explore themes of mental illness and psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jandy Nelson</span> American author (born 1965)

Jandy Nelson is an American author. Prior to her career as an author, Nelson worked for 13 years as a literary agent at Manus & Associates Literary Agency. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University as well as several Master of Fine Arts degrees. She later attended Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Lockwood & Co. is a young adult supernatural thriller series by Jonathan Stroud. It follows three young operatives of a psychic detection agency as they fight ghosts in London, England.

<i>A Song for Ella Grey</i> 2014 novel by David Almond

A Song for Ella Grey is a 2014 young adult novel, written by David Almond and illustrated by Karen Radford. It is based on the legend, Orpheus and Eurydice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angie Thomas</span> American author (born 1988)

Angie Thomas is an American young adult author, best known for writing The Hate U Give (2017). Her second young adult novel, On the Come Up, was released on February 25, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Acevedo</span> American poet and author

Elizabeth Acevedo is an American poet and author. In September 2022, the Poetry Foundation named her the year's Young People's Poet Laureate.

<i>Long Way Down</i> (book) 2017 novel by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down is a young adult novel in verse by Jason Reynolds, published October 24, 2017, by Atheneum Books. The book was longlisted for the National Book Award and was named a Printz Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and Newbery Medal Honor Book, alongside other awards and positive reviews.

<i>The Poet X</i> 2018 novel by Elizabeth Acevedo

The Poet X, published March 6, 2018 by HarperTeen, is a young adult novel by Elizabeth Acevedo. Fifteen-year-old Xiomara, also known as "X" or "Xio," works through the tension and conflict in her family by writing poetry. The book, a New York Times bestseller, was well received and won multiple awards at the 2019 Youth Media Awards.

<i>Look Both Ways</i> (novel) 2019 novel by Jason Reynolds

Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks is a young adult novel written by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Alexander Nabaum, and published October 8, 2019 by Atheneum Books. The book is a New York Times best seller, National Book Award for Young People's Literature finalist (2019), Coretta Scott King Award honor book (2020), and Carnegie Medal recipient (2021).

References

  1. 1 2 "70 Years Celebration: Anniversary Top Tens". The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  2. 1 2 3 (Carnegie Winner 2003). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Press releases for the 2003 Awards, presented in 2004 ". Press Desk. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-08-18.
  4. 1 2 "The 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time". TIME.com. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  5. ↑ McCally, Karen (2011). "An Epic Novelist of Adolescent Upheaval". Rochester Review. 73 (3). Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  6. ↑ "Donnelly wins Carnegie book prize". BBC News. July 9, 2004. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  7. 1 2 "2003 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners". Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. Los Angeles Times. Archived 2009-10-03. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  8. 1 2 "Michael L. Printz Winners and Honor Books". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). American Library Association. (ALA).
      "The Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature". YALSA. ALA. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  9. 1 2 The On-Sale Calendar: October 2010 Children's Books. Publishers Weekly. June 20, 2010. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  10. ↑ "2010 Best Books for Teens: The Complete List (pg. 13)". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2017-09-27.[ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ "Best Books 2010". School Library Journal. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  12. ↑ Donnelly, Jennifer (2011-07-26). Revolution (Reprint ed.). New York: Ember. ISBN   9780385737647.
  13. ↑ Noble, Barnes &. "Best Books of the Year 2010, Best Books of the Year, Books". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  14. ↑ admin (2010-12-27). "2011 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  15. 1 2 "REVOLUTION Wins Odyssey Honor" [ permanent dead link ]. Newsletter. January 18, 2011. Jennifer Donnelly. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  16. 1 2 "Odyssey Award winners and honor audiobooks, 2008–present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). American Library Association (ALA).
      "About the ALSC/Booklist/YALSA Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production". ALSC. ALA. Retrieved 2014-01-07.
  17. ↑ "2015 Green Earth Book Award Winners Announced - The Nature Generation". www.natgen.org. Archived from the original on 2017-05-31. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  18. ↑ "Disney Publishing Worldwide to Release Waterfire Saga". Entertainment Close-Up. 2014-02-02. Archived from the original on 2015-03-29 – via Highbeam Research.
  19. ↑ "Disney to Launch Multi-Platform Mermaid Saga by Jennifer Donnelly". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  20. ↑ "Children's Middle Grade Hardcover Books - Best Sellers - June 18, 2017 - The New York Times". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  21. ↑ "Jennifer Donnelly". www.jenniferdonnelly.com. Archived from the original on 2017-09-27. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  22. ↑ "Rights Report: Week of July 12, 2016". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  23. ↑ "Jennifer Donnelly writes "Beauty' of a book before premiere of Disney film". Watertown Daily Times. Retrieved 2017-09-27.[ permanent dead link ]
  24. ↑ "YA Reimagining of 'Cinderella' Sells in Major Pre-Frankfurt Deal". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
  25. ↑ "I LOVED stepsister it was the first book... — Jennifer Donnelly - Goodreads". www.goodreads.com/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  26. ↑ "Endeavor Content Adapting Cinderella Retelling 'Stepsister' (Exclusive)". www.hollywoodreporter.com/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  27. ↑ "Endeavor Content Acquires Jennifer Donnelly Fantasy Novel 'Poisoned'; 51 Entertainment & Made Up Stories Producing". www.deadline.com/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  28. ↑ "Molly's Letter (A Tea Rose Story) | Jennifer Donnelly". 7 January 2018.
  29. ↑ "Best of 2010: Books". Amazon. Retrieved 2014-01-08.
  30. ↑ Halse, Laurie (2013-01-01). "2010 Best Books for Teens: The Complete List: FORGE". Kirkus Reviews . Retrieved 2014-01-08.
  31. ↑ "Best Books - Heavy Medal". School Library Journal . 2010-11-17. Retrieved 2014-01-08.
  32. ↑ "Green Earth Book Award | The Nature Generation". www.natgen.org. Retrieved 2021-07-22.
  33. ↑ "2019 Best Fiction for Young Adults | YALSA". www.ala.org/yalsa/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  34. ↑ "2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults | YALSA". www.ala.org/yalsa/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  35. ↑ "Stepsister - Awards & Grants | ALA". www.ala.org. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  36. ↑ "90+ Best Young Adult Books of 2019 So Far - Must-Read YA Novels | Seventeen Magazine". www.seventeen.com. 31 December 2019. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  37. ↑ "Best Children's Books of the Year | Bank Street College of Education" (PDF). www.bankstreet.edu/library/center-for-childrens-literature/childrens-book-committee/best-childrens-books-of-the-year/best-childrens-books-of-the-year-archive/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  38. ↑ "2021 Best Fiction for Young Adults | YALSA". www.ala.org/yalsa/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
  39. ↑ "Best Children's Books of the Year | Bank Street College of Education" (PDF). www.bankstreet.edu/library/center-for-childrens-literature/childrens-book-committee/best-childrens-books-of-the-year/best-childrens-books-of-the-year-archive/. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.