Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen

Balzer + Bray
(HarperCollins Publishers)

(pub. 1.23.2018)
 40 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  Deborah Hopkinson
    and illustrator: Qin Leng

C haracter: Jane Austen

O verview from the jacket flap: 

     "It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of our greatest writers.
     But before that, she was just an ordinary girl.
     In fact, young Jane was a bit quiet and shy; if you had met her back then, you might not have noticed her at all. But she would have noticed you. Jane watched and listened to all the things people around her did and said and locked those observations away for safekeeping.
     Jane also loved to read. She devoured everything in her father's massive library, and before long she began creating her own stories. In her time, the most popular books were grand adventures and romances, but Jane wanted to go her own way ... and went on to invent an entirely new kind of novel.
     Deborah Hopkinson and Qin Leng have collaborated on a gorgeous tribute to an independent thinker who turned ordinary life into extraordinary stories and created a body of work that has delighted and inspired readers for generations."

T antalizing taste: 
       
"Now, two hundred years later,
I wonder if Jane would be surprised to learn
that her books are still read and loved
by people all over the world?
Maybe.
Then again, maybe not.

For perhaps there was a moment
when young Jane stood alone in
her father's grand library,
with the works of great men all around her,
and said to herself, 'I can do this.
I can do even better.
I will write about the ordinary world
in the most extraordinary way.'

That, dear reader, is exactly what she did."

and something more: The back flap says that "Deborah Hopkinson first discovered Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in sixth grade and continues to reread it once a year (at least). Her favorite Austen film scene is the moment when the late and beloved actor Alan Rickman tosses coins into the air in Sense and Sensibility. When not reading or watching Austen (and longing to visit England), Deborah writes picture books, middle grade novels and nonfiction from her home near Portland, Oregon."  
      And she's also been on the faculty of wonderful narrative nonfiction workshop retreats through Highlights Foundation/Boyds Mills Press in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.  And I was lucky enough to attend just such a writing retreat!