Jean Carolyn Craighead George was an American writer, born on July 2, 1919. She authored more than one hundred books for children and young adults, including the acclaimed Newbery Medal-winning book Julie of the Wolves and the Newbery runner-up My Side of the Mountain.

Common themes in George's works include the environment and the natural world. Besides children's fiction, she also wrote at least two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography titled Journey Inward.

Jean was a dedicated mother of three children—Twig C. George, Craig, and T. Luke George—and a grandmother who joyfully read to her grandchildren. Over the years, she kept one hundred and seventy-three pets, not including dogs and cats, in her home in Chappaqua, New York.

For her lifetime contribution as a children's writer, she was the U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1964.