Jean Fritz was born in Hankow, China on November 16, 1915. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Wheaton College in 1937. She wrote picture books and historical fiction before focusing on historical nonfiction. Her first book, Bunny Hopewell's First Spring, was published in 1954. Her other books included And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?; Will You Sign Here, John Hancock?; Can't You Make Them Behave, King George?; Shh! We're Writing the Constitution; Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold; Where Do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus?; Who's That Stepping on Plymouth Rock?; The Double Life of Pocahontas; and George Washington's Mother.
Homesick: My Own Story, a collection of linked narratives, traces her life from her girlhood in China to her longed-for yet uneasy passage to America. It won a National Book Award and was named a Newbery Honor Book. She received the Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Association, the National Humanities Medal, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award and the Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature for her body of work. She died on May 14, 2017 at the age of 101.
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