Jan Slepian

Who is Jan Slepian?

Jan Slepian is an author of books for children and young adults. Born Janice Berek in New York City, she obtained a degree in psychology at Brooklyn College, later doing graduate work in clinical psychology and speech pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She worked as a speech therapist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and before embarking on a writing career.

With co-author Ann Seidler, she published several illustrated books in a series called the "The Listen-Hear Books". Titles included The Hungry Thing, The Hungry Thing Returns and The Hungry Thing Goes to a Restaurant: all three are for young readers and teach about phonemic awareness; they also co-authored The Cat Who Wore a Pot on Her Head, Alfie and the Dream Machine and several other titles.

Some of her books deal with mental disability, including The Alfred Summer Lester's Turn and Risk n' Roses.

Books for adolescent readers include The Night of the Bozos, The Broccoli Tapes, Pinocchio's Sister, Mind Reader and Emily Just in Time.

Her husband was the noted mathematician David Slepian.