Tripp, Jenny

Personal

Female.

Addresses

Home—Essex, CT.

Career

Children's author, screenwriter, and librarian. Essex Library, Essex, CT, member of staff.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

The Man Who Was Left for Dead, illustrated by Charles Shaw, Raintree Publishers (Milwaukee, WI), 1980.

One Was Left Alive, illustrated by John Burgoyne, Raintree Publishers (Milwaukee, WI), 1980.

Pete and Fremont, illustrated by John Manders, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2007.

Pete's Disappearing Act, illustrated by John Manders, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2008.

SCREENPLAYS

The Online Adventures of Ozzie the Elf (television film), 1997.

'Twas the Night (television film), 2001.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail, 2005.

Contributor to Disney-produced screenplays, including The Prince and the Pauper, 1990, and The Lion King, 1994. Contributor to periodicals, including Los Angeles Times, Family Life, and FamilyFun.

Sidelights

Jenny Tripp turned to writing books for children after working for several years working in film, where her credits include work on Disney's animated The Prince and the Pauper and The Lion King. Illustrated by John Manders, Tripp tells an amusing story in Pete and Fremont. In the story, Pete is an elderly poodle who had been the star of a small traveling circus for several years. When he misses the mark and singes his tale during a jump through a flaming hoop, Pete gets recast as a canine cannonball by circus owner Moliere. The poodle's hopes to return to the limelight look dim until a friendship with Fremont the wild grizzly bear results in a new show-stopping act and an act of kindness. According to School Library Journal contributor Adrienne Furness, "Tripp's strength" in Pete and Fremont comes from her ability to "keep … the plot moving along while revealing interesting behind-the-scenes details of circus life." In Booklist, Todd Morning predicted that "young readers will enjoy this story of a circus in which the animals … actually run the show." Furness also had praise for Manders' "freewheeling" cartoon illustrations, while a Kirkus Reviews writer called Tripp's story a "heartwarming tale of interspecies bonding."

Other books by Tripp include two works of nonfiction. Based on a true story, The Man Who Was Left for Dead takes place in the early 1800s and focuses on Hugh Glass, who survived an attack by a grizzly bear during a trek into the American frontier during which he was abandoned by his companions. A similar tale of survival is captured by Tripp in One Was Left Alive, which described the ordeal faced by seventeen-year-old Juliane Koepcke as the sole survivor of a commercial plane crash in the Peruvian jungle in December of 1971.