author • speaker • teacher • volunteer
author • speaker • teacher • volunteer

Fire on the Mountain

Fire on the Mountain

Written by Jane Kurtz
Illustrated by E. B. Lewis
Simon & Schuster, 1994
40 pages

Ages 4-10
HC ISBN: 978-0-060-56493-3
PB ISBN: 978-0-689-81896-7

Fire on the Mountain is my retelling of an Ethiopian folktale I heard as a child, about a dreamer who survives one test of a night on a cold mountain and then has to also outwit the rich man who would cheat him of his victory.” —Jane Kurtz

Awards & Recognition

  • Alternate selection, Children’s Book of the Month Club.
  • ALA’s Book Links called it one of the best picture books of 1994.
  • One of five finalists for the PEN West Literary Award for Children’s Literature.
  • Nominated for the Flicker Tale Award and Young Hoosier Award, state lists.

Classroom Resources

Other Books to Read

  • “Fire on the Mountain” from The Fire on the Mountain and other Ethiopian Stories by Harold Courlander and Wolf Leslau (Holt, 1950).
  • “The Warmth of a Fire” from Fair is Fair by Sharon Creeden (August House, 1995)
  • “One Candle Power” in Once the Hodja by Alice Geer Kelsey (David McKay, 1994).
  • “Ooka and the Stolen Smell” in The Case of the Marble Monster by I.G. Edmonds (Scholastic, 1961).
  • In the Month of Kislev by Nina Jaffe (Viking, 1992).
  • “Rich Man, Poor Man” in Favorite Folktales from Around the World by Jane Yolen (Pantheon, 1986).