Jim Kjelgaard

Jim Kjelgaard was an American author of children’s and young adult fiction. Born in New York City in 1910, he spent much of his childhood on farms in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, where hunting, fishing, trapping, and exploring shaped his lifelong love of nature and animals.

Kjelgaard began publishing stories while still young and released his first novel, Forest Patrol, in 1941. Over the course of his career, he wrote more than forty books, many featuring dogs or wild animals and drawing on the challenges and beauty of the natural world.

His most famous work, Big Red (1945), tells of a boy and a remarkable Irish setter. The book became a lasting favorite, sold widely, and was adapted by Walt Disney into a 1962 film. Kjelgaard died in 1959, but his adventurous animal stories continue to introduce new generations of readers to the outdoors.