Deborah Hopkinson

Award Winning Author of Fiction & Nonfiction for Children & Teens

Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen

The Story of Six Novels, Three Notebooks, a Writing Box, and One Clever Girl

Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen

What is this book about?

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.

Ordi­nary, Extra­or­di­nary Jane Austen includes a time­line and quotes from Austen’s most pop­u­lar novels.

Par­ents and grand­par­ents, as well as teach­ers and librar­i­ans, will enjoy intro­duc­ing chil­dren to Jane Austen through this acces­si­ble, beau­ti­ful­ly pack­aged pic­ture book.

“A charm­ing account of pride and per­sis­tence.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly)

Reviews

“This is an up-close intro­duc­tion to Austen … [and] a sto­ry of a girl’s empow­er­ment.” (Book­list)

“Gen­tle, charm­ing, and infor­ma­tive, this wel­come addi­tion to any library should plant a seed for lat­er enjoy­ment of Austen’s work.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“Hopkinson’s light, con­ver­sa­tion­al tone and obvi­ous appre­ci­a­tion for her sub­ject com­bine with Qin’s live­ly ink-and-water­col­or illus­tra­tions to cre­ate an engag­ing por­trait of this tal­ent­ed writer. A per­fect­ly pitched cel­e­bra­tion of an esteemed author.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“A live­ly take on a woman who, despite pub­lish­ing con­ven­tions that favored male writ­ers, refused to let her autho­r­i­al voice remain mute. This man­ages to suc­cess­ful­ly intro­duce Austen’s char­ac­ter­is­tic wit and social com­men­tary to an audi­ence who would oth­er­wise be too young to digest the orig­i­nal works. A delight­ful read.” (Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Children’s Books)

Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen

author, Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son
illus­tra­tor, Qin Leng
Balz­er & Bray
Harper­Collins
ages 4 and up, 2018
ISBN 978–0062373304

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