People like Jim Kjelgaard

James Arthur Kjelgaard (December 6, 1910 – July 12, 1959) was an American author of young adult literature.

Kjelgaard was born in New York City, New York on December 6, 1910. Jim's father, Carroll W. Kjelgaard, was a physician, happily married with five sons and one daughter. Kjelgaard was the fourth oldest. Kjelgaard and his siblings lived on a seven hundred and fifty acre farm in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania during his childhood. It was the outdoors which provided a playground for all the children. Dave Drakula, writing in Jim Kjelgaard – From the Bigwoods to Hollywood, recounted a time when Kjelgaard and his brother Henry were outside playing when Kjelgaard spotted a bear. Kjelgaard and Henry climbed up the apple tree to escape the bear. Once the bear was gone Kjelgaard got down from the tree screaming and yelling as he ran into the house. In the meantime, Henry was too small to get out of the tree himself and was stuck there. The bear came back again and stared Henry down with Kjelgaard laughing in the distance. This is where Kjelgaard's first love of bears comes from and later appeared in his books such as Buckskin Brigade (1947).