Gretchen Woelfle

I’m Gretchen Woelfle (that’s Wolf-lee) and I'm a children's author. I've written picture books, short stories, essays, novels, biographies, and environmental books.

I write about things I want to know more about – and things I already know and love.
Sometimes those are memories…
sometimes it’s what I see around me…
sometimes I write about events that happened long ago…
and sometimes I make it all up!

Writing is a solitary business. Most days I work at home with my calico cat, Jelly, lying beside me, her chin on my keyboard. Other days I go to schools to talk to the children I write for. It tickles my fancy to be a celebrity for a day!

I love to travel around the world looking for stories. I've lived high in the Himalayas and on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean. I've also found stories in Holland, England, Bolivia, and right in my own backyard.

Let me hear from you. Email is best: gretchenwoelfle@​gmail.com.

1. I have three cats: Jelly, LV (Little Voice,) and Chelsea FC.
2. Jelly looks just like Katje, the Windmill Cat.
3. I once lived in a little grass hut on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I'm writing a novel about it now.
4. I've got a miniature farm at my home in Los Angeles, California, with seven fruit trees, three kinds of berries, lots of vegetables, and a tree drooping with dozens of avocados.
5. My front garden dazzles with golden California poppies every spring.
6. My son and daughter don't think much of my singing voice, but I love singing in a choir anyway.
7. I like to go boogieboarding in the Pacific Ocean.
8. If I didn't love the California sunshine so much, I'd move to London, England.
9. My favorite sport is soccer (English football) and my favorite team is Chelsea Football Club in London.
10. If I come to visit your school, you can help me act out my books with props, costumes, and songs. I promise to sing quietly.

And the first reviews are in!

KIRKUS REVIEWS

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE
A Novel in Five Acts
Author: Woelfle, Gretchen
Illustrator: Cox, Thomas

Publisher:Holiday House
Pages: 176
Price ( Hardcover ): $16.95
Publication Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-8234-2281-4
Category: Fiction

A novel of Elizabethan theater centers around an unsuccessful thief. Kit is caught up in the excitement of a performance by the Lord Chamberlain’s men at the Theatre. Unfortunately, he is a penniless, runaway 12-year-old orphan forced to work as a cutpurse, stealing money from audience members. Distracted by the drama, he fails in his first attempt and agrees to work for the players to avoid prison. Reluctantly, he is caught up in their hectic world of rehearsal and performance. Woelfle opens a revealing window into 1590s London and its dynamic theater scene. There are intriguing snapshots of one William Shakespeare, who finds his inspiration from street songs and conversations he overhears. Men and boys play the roles of women, sew costumes, rehearse speeches and sword fights and build sets. The scene stealer here is the intrigue behind the stealthy deconstruction of the Theatre and its rebuilding as the Globe due to a legal squabble with the landlord. Against this backdrop, Kit grapples with his own career choices, growing into the satisfying realization that carpentry is his calling. Young Molly, who sells apples in the theater, is a welcome friend and foil. Readers of Gary Blackwood’s The Shakespeare Stealer (1998) will find this equally exciting. The conceit of organizing the story through acts and scenes in lieu of chapters sets the stage nicely for a dramatic tale. (author’s note, glossary, bibliography; illustrations not seen) (Historical fiction. 8-12)


BOOKLIST

All the World's a Stage: A Novel in Five Acts.
Woelfle, Gretchen (Author) , Cox, Thomas (Illustrator)
Apr 2011. 176 p. Holiday, hardcover, $16.95. (9780823422814).
In Elizabethan England, 12-year-old Kit is one of hundreds of boys from the countryside who arrive in
London to seek a trade. Unfortunately, Kit’s first apprenticeship is with a gang of thieves, who order him
to steal purses from the crowd at the Theatre playhouse, where Shakespeare is the writer in residence.
After Kit is caught, the Theatre’s managers give him the option of working off his crime, and what begins
as a punishment turns into a thrilling opportunity as Kit becomes an indispensable stagehand and falls in
love with theatrical life. Woelfle adds additional tension with a story, based on true events, of the players’
eviction from one site, and the secret, rushed dismantling of the timbers that eventually formed the Globe
Theatre at a different location. But the most compelling drama is Kit’s universal search for his calling and
his shifting friendships, particularly with a girl so clever that even Shakespeare quotes her. An author’s
note, a glossary, and a bibliography add more curricular tie-ins, while frequent charming drawings enhance
the sense of time and place.
— Gillian Engberg

HORN BOOK

All the World’s a Stage: A Novel in Five Acts
by Gretchen Woelfle; illus. by Thomas Cox
Intermediate Holiday 161 pp.
4/​11 978-0-8234-2281-4 $16.95 g
This accessible, you-are-there saga of Elizabethan London and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (the theater troupe home to Will Shakespeare et al.) is suitably nuts-and-bolts given its protagonist, a young cutpurse turned carpenter. Country boy Kit, newly orphaned, has come to the big city to make his fortune. Pressed into service by the Chamberlain’s Men after he’s caught trying to steal patrons’ purses, he comes to know theater life from the inside out. Kit works as stage boy, messenger, and even bit player as he strives to find his place in the world. Both novel and Kit’s search culminates with the bold “theft” of the playhouse from under the nose of a threatening landlord. Readers will be enthralled as, piece by piece, the playhouse is dismantled and rebuilt (as the famous Globe Theatre); simultaneously, Kit falls in love with the art of carpentry (“’Tis work that will satisfy my heart and my head”). Woelfle sprinkles the narrative with just enough “twas”s and “he knew not”s to add flavor without seeming contrived, and Kit’s journey from lost boy to young man with a future is as satisfying as the detailed portrait of place and time. Martha V. Parravano