Jim Kjelgaard

Jim Kjelgaard
Born (1910-12-06)December 6, 1910
New York, New York, United States
Died July 12, 1959(1959-07-12) (aged 48)
Phoenix, Arizona, United States
Occupation author
Nationality American
Period 1938 to 1959
Genre juvenile fiction (novels), children's literature, young adult literature
Subject animals, outdoors
Notable works Big Red

James Arthur Kjelgaard (December 6, 1910 – July 12, 1959)[1] was an American author of young adult literature.

Born in New York City, New York, Jim Kjelgaard is the author of more than forty novels, the most famous of which is 1945's Big Red. It sold 225,000 copies by 1956 [2] and was made into a 1962 Walt Disney film with the same title, Big Red. His books were primarily about dogs and wild animals, often with animal protagonists and told from the animal's point of view. Kjelgaard also wrote short fiction for several magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Argosy, and Adventure. [3]

Jim Kjelgaard committed suicide in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1959, after suffering for several years from chronic pain and depression.[4]

List of works

References

  1. Trosky, Susan M & Donna Olendorf, ed. (1992), "KJELGAARD, James Arthur 1910–1959", Contemporary Authors, v. 137, Gale Research, pp. 250–252, as reproduced on Kjelgaard tribute site. Note that some sources give December 10 as birth date, e.g. this biographical sketch.
  2. Doyle, Brian (Spring 1999), "A Small Note About Big Red", American Scholar, 68.2, Academic OneFile, p. 134
  3. FictionMags Index Entry for Jim Kjelgaard
  4. Drakula, Dave (July–September 1990), "Jim Kjelgaard – From the Bigwoods to Hollywood", Mountain Journal, Vol. 8, No. 4 reprinted on Gary Charter's Kjelgaard tribute site

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about:
James Arthur Kjelgaard


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.