Jane Yolen was born on February 11, 1939, in New York City, to Will Hyatt, an author and publicist, and Isabelle Berlin, a social worker, puzzle-maker, and homemaker. Yolen showed early promise as a writer. As an eighth-grader at Hunter, a school for gifted girls, she composed a paper in rhyme and wrote a nonfiction piece about pirates and a seventeen-page page western novel. Yolen's first book Pirates in Petticoats, published in 1963, grew from these efforts. She also wrote a play for her first-grade class.

During her high school years in Westport, New YorkConnecticut, Yolen pursued her writing and won an English prize. At this time she also developed her lasting interest in diverse religions. She was impressed by the Quaker religion when an adored cousin-in-law gave her a copy of the journal of George Fox, its founder. She attended church with a Roman Catholic friend...