Jordan, Rosa 1939–

Personal

Born June 4, 1939, in Ropesville, TX; immigrated to Canada, 1974. Education: University of California, Los Angeles, B.A.; University of Guanajuato, Mexico, M.A.

Addresses

Home—Rossland, British Columbia, Canada. E-mail—rosaj@look.ca.

Career

Writer.

Awards, Honors

Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Special nomination, Parents' Choice Award, and First Place Award, National Council on Family, all 1997, all for The Sweetest Gift; Silver Birch Honours Book designation, and Red Maple Award finalist, both 2005, and Chocolate Lily Award nomination, 2006-07, all for Lost Goat Lane.

Writings

Rossland: The First 100 Years, Lefevre/Heritage Trust (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 1996.

The Sweetest Gift (screenplay), Showtime, 1997.

Dangerous Places: Travels on the Edge, Pottersfield Press (Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada), 1997.

Cycling Cuba, Lonely Planet (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2002.

Lost Goat Lane (novel; adapted from screenplay The Sweetest Gift), Peachtree Publishers (Atlanta, GA), 2004.

The Goatnappers (novel), Peachtree Publishers (Atlanta, GA), 2007.

Far from Botany Bay, Oolichan (Lantzville, British Columbia, Canada), 2008.

Sidelights

Canadian writer Rosa Jordan moved from freelance journalism to writing a movie screenplay, The Sweetest Gift, which was nominated for a Daytime Emmy award and earned several other honors after being produced for television in 1997. She has also written books on travel and history along with novels for middle-grade readers that include Lost Goat Lane and The Goatnappers.

Lost Goat Lane is a story about overcoming prejudice in a small town in Florida. When one of the Martin family's goats wanders into the yard of the Wilsons, their African-American neighbors, and mates with the Wilsons' prize Billy goat, thirteen-year-old Kate Martin starts to question the divide between the two families. She recognizes the prejudice against her own poor, "white trash" family, as young Ruby Wilson calls them. However, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson treat all the Martin children like part of their own family, and eventually Kate and Ruby form a tenuous friendship. "Jordan complements Kate's genuineness with an interesting locale …, [and] intergenerational friendship," wrote a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. Noting that the theme of overcoming prejudice is obvious, Amy Patrick commented in her School Library Journal review of Lost Goat Lane that "the fully realized characters and the warmth of the story make up for the small sermons."

In The Goatnappers, the Martin family's story continues, this time from the perspective of fourteen-year-old Justin Martin. As the first freshman to make the varsity baseball team in years, Justin has to perform well on the team and get good grades if he wants to keep his place. To get the money for a bicycle, Justin sells his pet goat, but when he discovers that the new owner is mistreating his former pet, he and his friends "rescue" the animal. Between keeping the goat hidden and the reappearance of Justin's wayward father, the teen is distracted from his goals, and his position on the team is

threatened. "The goatnappers' amusing antics and Justin's challenging choices make this a good read for middle-graders," concluded a Kirkus Reviews writer. "Jordan skillfully handles the moral issue of whether breaking the law is ever the right thing to do," Kim Dare wrote in her School Library Journal review of The Goatnappers, and Booklist critic Hazel Rochman remarked that "Justin's family is beautifully drawn."

"My primary motivations are avoidance of boredom and wanting to protect animals and wildlife habitat," Jordan noted to SATA in discussing her writing career. "Writing helps me do both. That's why my subject matter and writing styles are all over the map, ranging from a history of the Canadian mountain community where I live, to children's stories set in the Florida Everglades where I spent my childhood, to literary fiction with a South Pacific setting, to nonfiction about my travels in Cuba, Central, and South America. The natural world is amazing, and the courage of some of the people I meet, often in the most unexpected places, is beyond belief."

Jordan stated on the Fitzhenry & Whiteside Web site that the theme she hope to convey in her books is that even when people are different, they can become friends. Traveling in different countries "has helped me understand, on a very deep level, how much more alike people are than different," she explained. "But it has also taught me that you have to work at getting past the differences, because that's usually what you notice first."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2007, Hazel Rochman, review of The Goatnappers, p. 86.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February, 2005, review of Lost Goat Lane, p. 254.

Canadian Book Review Annual, 2005, Nanette Morton, review of Lost Goat Lane, p. 496.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2004, review of Lost Goat Lane, p. 963; March 15, 2007, review of The Goatnappers.

School Library Journal, December, 2004, Amy Patrick, review of Lost Goat Lane, p. 148; September, 2007, Kim Dare, review of The Goatnappers, p. 200.

Resource Links, October, 2005, David Ward, review of Lost Goat Lane, p. 14.

ONLINE

ABC Bookworld Web site,http://www.abcbookworld.com/ (July 1, 2008), "Rosa Jordan."

Fitzhenry & Whiteside Web site,http://www.fitzhenry.ca/ (July 1, 2008), "Rosa Jordan."