Jim Kjelgaard: "A Master Storyteller"

This autobiographical essay by Jim Kjelgaard appeared in The Junior Book of Authors – Second Edition, Revised – edited by Stanley J. Kunitz & Howard Haycraft (H. W. Wilson Co., 1951). Kjelgaard notes, in the final paragraphs of the article, that he had “written four books for boys,” which makes me think the article was written between the publications of Buckskin Brigade  (1947) and Snow Dog (1948).    

  What they said…   Wildlife Cameraman   llllll   Wildlife Cameraman  appeared in hardcover from New York’s Holiday House in April 1957. It was the first of four of Kjelgaard’s books to be illustrated by Sam Savitt. The others, all published after Kjelgaard’s death in 1959, were:   Fawn in the Forest and Other Animal Stories  (1962), Two Dogs and Horse (1964), and  Dave and His Dog, Mulligan  (1966). Kjelgaard’s twenty-second novel,  Wildlife Cameraman   received exceptional reviews across the industry, including a starred review from  Kirkus , calling it “[s]harply focused” and “[capturing] all the thrills and satisfactions, even of photography’s more routine moments, and, in the Kjelgaard manner, attaches them to a tight plot closely related to the technique involved.” The write-up, from the Nov. 1957 issue of  Children’s Digest , for Wildlife Cameraman is below.    

Fire-Hunter by Jim Kjelgaard Illustrated by Ralph Ray, Jr. Holiday House, Sep. 1951 Jim Kjelgaard’s eleventh novel, Fire-Hunter , is a fast-paced pre-historic adventure. Hawk, the Chief Spear-Maker of his tribe, is banished for defying tribal law and using a spear-thrower during a wooly rhinoceros hunt. He, along with a girl called Willow left behind by their hunter-gatherer tribe because of a leg injury, seem doomed as they must survive alone. Their survival depends on their ability to hunt smaller, more agile, game that are inaccessible to their tribe because the larger game—wooly rhinoceros, bison—are too large and deadly for them to hunt alone.     Their defense is precarious, too, since Hawk can carry only a club and two large spears. Hawk’s desperation and curiosity lead him to adapt his weapons from throwing spears to a catapult-like spear thrower, what I’ve always thought of as an atlatl, to an early form of a bow. Willow does her share, too, helping Hawk understan...

  A Little About…  Rebel Siege Jim Kjelgaard’s second novel, Rebel Siege , appeared in September 1943 from Holiday House, a full two years after his first novel, Forest Patrol , was published. It was the first of two Kjelgaard novels illustrated by Charles Banks Wilson. The other, The Story of Geronimo , was published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1958. Wilson is most famous for his portraits of Will Rogers, Jim Thorpe, and U.S. House Speaker Carl Albert, which is hanging in Washington D.C.’s National Portrait Gallery.      While Forest Patrol is like the books Kjelgaard is best known for—animals, boys, and wild places— Rebel Siege is a historical novel about a fourteen-year-old boy, Kinrose McKensie, and his experiences in the American Revolutionary War. Largely set in South Carolina, Rebel Siege , chronicles Kin’s war—including losing his rifle to a British soldier and dealing with his Tory father—all the way to the British surrender at Kings Mountain. Kirkus...

“A Matter of Morale” appeared in the Oct. 24, 1942, issue of Liberty . The artist is unknown.     

What they said… Chip, The Dam Builder   llllll   Chip, the Dam Builder appeared in hardcover from New York’s Holiday House in Sep. 1950. It was the second of three of Kjelgaard’s books illustrated by Ralph Ray, Jr. The others were:   Buckskin Brigade (1947) and Fire-Hunter (1951). Kjelgaard’s ninth novel, Chip, the Dam Builder received exceptional reviews across the industry, including a starred review from Kirkus , calling it “gripping, exciting” and “a spell-binder of a book—informative and compelling…” This write-up from Saturday Review —seen below—called Chip, the Dam Builder “one of the best of the wild-animal stories of 1950.”   CHIP THE DAM BUILDER . By Jim Kjelgaard. Illustrated by Ralph Ray. New York: Holiday House . 233 pp. $2.50. Jim Kjelgaard is always able to bring plot and action to his stories of wild animals. The beaver, who is the hero of this one, is one of the most convi...

A Little About… Forest Patrol   JIM KJELGAARD turned 31 the year his first novel, Forest Patrol , illustrated by Tony Palazzo, was published by Holiday House (1941). He had married Edna – Eddy – Dresden two years earlier and moved from Pennsylvania to Milwaukee where the couple welcomed their first and only child, Karen. Kjelgaard had been working as a full-time writer since 1938. His first significant sale had been a short non-fiction piece, “Hair Over the Sights,” to Fur-Fish-Game in Jan. 1934 and in 1938 his adventure story, “River Man” (Nov. 5), made the pages of one of the most celebrated pulps of the era: Argosy .      Over the next several years Kjelgaard regularly contributed to  Argosy . In 1939 and 1940 alone, at least 17 of Kjelgaard’s shorts were published in its pages. His 1940 story, “The Battle of Dabbit Run” (Mar. 9), was adapted into an episode of the anthology television series,  Studio 57 , which aired June 15, 1955, on the DuMont T...

      This blog is dedicated to the work of Jim Kjelgaard (pronounced kel-guard ). A writer best known for his young adult novels about wild places and often featuring dogs and animals in their own environment. His most famous being Big Red (1945) and its two sequels Irish Red (1951) and Outlaw Red (1953). Kjelgaard wrote dozens of other excellent young adult novels, including Haunt Fox (1954), Trading Jeff and His Dog (1956), and my favorite, The Spell of the White Sturgeon (1953). His writing won a Boys Club Award , a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a Boys’ Life Award .      Kjelgaard also wrote a few novels for the adult market— The Lost Wagon (1955) being one—and dozens (perhaps hundreds) of short stories for the best pulp and slick magazines of the 1930s and '40s. Magazines like Argosy , Adventure , Black Mask , Blue Book , Collier's , Saturday Evening Post , Short Stories , and many (many) others. All of it worthy of a ...