Virginia school librarian and teacher Jacqueline Jules has earned acclaim as an author of children’s books. Photo Credit: Jacqueline Jules
There are many excellent educators who have earned success in endeavors outside of the classroom. This is true of Jacqueline Jules, a school librarian and teacher from Virginia who has has earned acclaim as an author of children’s books.
Jacqueline was born in 1956 in Petersburg, Virginia. As a young woman, she earned her Bachelor’s degree with a major in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2001 she earned her Master’s degree in Library Science from the University of Maryland.
Currently, Jacqueline works as a school librarian at Timber Lane Elementary School in Falls Church, Virginia. She also works as a storyteller and as a guest speaker at schools. She has also taught religious school, led Tot Shabbat services, and has experience as a writing resource teacher. Her career as an educator has spanned a total of 28 years. She credits these experiences with her success as an author. “It actually wasn’t until I became a school librarian that I had enough ideas for writing children’s books,” Jacqueline confesses. “My years as a librarian fueled my writing rather than stalled it. Working in a school taught me what children enjoy and what was missing from library shelves,” she continued. “I could never do the writing I do now without having been a teacher,” she concludes.
Jacqueline’s work has appeared in over 100 publications. She has authored more than 50 children’s books, including The Grey Striped Shirt; Once upon a Shabbos; the Zapato Power series; the Sofia Martinez series; Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation; Duck for Turkey Day; Never Say a Mean Word Again; Feathers for Peacock; The Hardest Wor; and Pluto is Peeved. Also a poet, Jacqueline is the author of Tag Your Dreams: Poems of Play and Persistence.
For her work as a children’s author, Jacqueline has earned many accolades. She garnered the Arlington Arts Moving Words Contest twice, in 1999 and again in 2007. In 2009, she earned the SCBWI Magazine Merit Plaque for Poetry, and 2008, she received the Best Original Poetry Award from the Catholic Press Association. She has also garnered a citation for Notable Books for Young Readers from the Association of Jewish Libraries in 2002, and that same year she was named a National Jewish Book Award finalist.
To learn more about this amazing educator and author, visit www.jacquelinejules.com.
