Coleman, Janet Wyman

PERSONAL:

Married, 1972; children: two sons. Education: Wellesley College, graduated, 1988. Hobbies and other interests: Watercolor, designing needlepoint art.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Wayland, MA. E-mail—janet.coleman@gmail.com.

CAREER:

Author, photographer, and multimedia producer. Professional photographer; Janet Wyman Coleman Productions (multimedia company), Wayland, MA, founder.

MEMBER:

Authors Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Parents' Choice Award, 2003, for Baseball for Everyone; Gold Award, National Parenting Publications, 2006, and Best Books for Young Adults selection, American Library Association, 2007, both for Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies.

WRITINGS:

Fast Eddie, illustrated by Alec Gillman, Four Winds Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Famous Bears & Friends: One Hundred Years of Teddy Bear Stories, Poems, Songs, and Heroics, Dutton (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Elizabeth V. Warren) Baseball for Everyone: Stories from the Great Game, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 2003.

Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies: A History of Spies and Espionage, Harry N. Abrams (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

In addition to her work creating educational multimedia productions, Janet Wyman Coleman is the author of fiction and nonfiction for young readers. In her debut novel, Fast Eddie, published in 1993, Coleman details the exploits of a mischievous raccoon and his frequent skirmishes with a suburban family. When Eddie notices the Plotkins cutting down trees, mowing a field, and adding chemicals to their lawn, he decides to retaliate by tipping over their garbage cans and artfully rearranging the spilled contents. An angry Mr. Plotkin attempts to trap the rascally raccoon, to little effect, and in response Eddie's actions become more destructive, despite warnings from the raccoon's best friend, the Plotkins' cat. Writing in School Library Journal, Maggie McEwen remarked that Coleman ‘does an excellent job of telling the story from the animals' point of view."

Coleman celebrates the 100th birthday of one of the world's favorite toys in Famous Bears & Friends: One Hundred Years of Teddy Bear Stories, Poems, Songs, and Heroics. Here she traces the birth of the teddy bear to an incident involving President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid hunter who once refused to shoot an exhausted bear. Upon learning about Roosevelt's merciful act, a Brooklyn toymaker produced a stuffed animal in the president's honor. Coleman also examines the role German seamstress Margarete Steiff played in popularizing the teddy bear, discusses the origins of the ‘mourning’ teddy bears designed to commemorate the tragic sinking of the cruise ship Titanic, and relates the tale of Kumataro, the teddy bear that accompanied the crew of the space shuttle Discovery. In addition, Coleman includes stories about fictional bears such as A.A. Milne's classic Winnie-the-Pooh, Michael Bond's A Bear Called Paddington, and Don Freeman's Corduroy, as well as bear-themed poems by Shel Silverstein and Judith Viorst. Writing in Booklist, Kathy Broderick described Famous Bears & Friends as ‘a beautifully designed collection of teddy bear history and story."

In 2003 Coleman published Baseball for Everyone: Stories from the Great Game. Illustrated with images from an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum and drawings from The Perfect Game by Elizabeth V. Warren, Baseball for Everyone offers an anecdotal history of America's proverbial favorite pastime, complete with biographies of the game's most famous—and infamous—players. Many reviewers praised the color photographs, illustrated scorecards, and quilts that accompany the text. According to a Publishers Weekly critic, ‘The book's crisp design … hits a home run, making the most of a visual bounty that helps to underscore the sport's tremendous influence on the national psyche.’ Baseball for Everyone ‘merits attention for showing baseball's integral relationship to American culture,’ observed Booklist contributor John Peters, and a Kirkus Reviews critic called the work ‘a great addition to the literature of the great American game."

In Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies: A History of Spies and Espionage, Coleman looks at intelligence-gathering methods through the ages. Heavily illustrated with images from the International Spy Museum, the work describes a variety of gadgets, weapons, and torture devices, discusses clandestine operations, and profiles both real and fictional spies. Coleman's ‘engrossing, readable text will hold the interest of even reluctant readers,’ predicted Lynn K. Vanca in School Library Journal. In the words of Booklist contributor Gillian Engberg, ‘the world of espionage is exposed in this captivating overview."

"I am often asked if I always knew I would be a writer,’ Coleman once commented. ‘I answer, ‘Absolutely not!’ My strength in school was math and not English, so I wasn't encouraged at all. However, I love to tell stories. I think storytelling is a way of making sense out of what is happening as well as a way of entertaining, amusing and educating. When the cat crawls under the bed, I wonder what she's thinking and planning. What's the story there? When I write nonfiction, I think about what is most surprising about a person or incident, and what's to be learned? Next to storytelling, learning is the most fun of all."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2003, Kathy Broderick, review of Famous Bears & Friends: One Hundred Years of Teddy Bear Stories, Poems, Songs, and Heroics, p. 1066; September 1, 2003, John Peters, review of Baseball for Everyone: Stories from the Great Game, p. 117; October 1, 2006, Gillian Engberg, review of Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies: A History of Spies and Espionage, p. 47.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2003, review of Baseball for Everyone, p. 1014; October 1, 2006, review of Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies, p. 1012.

New York Sun, December 20, 2006, Otto Penzler, review of Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies.

Publishers Weekly, November 4, 2002, review of Famous Bears & Friends, p. 87; July 28, 2003, review of Baseball for Everyone, p. 97.

School Library Journal, June, 1993, Maggie McEwen, review of Fast Eddie, p. 104; February, 2003, Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, review of Famous Bears & Friends, p. 184; October, 2003, Blair Christolon, review of Baseball for Everyone, p. 156; February, 2007, Lynn K. Vanca, review of Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies, p. 133.

ONLINE

Janet Wyman Coleman Home Page,http://janetcoleman.com (October 31, 2007).