J. Albert

Mann

Award Winning Author

Teen & Young Adult Writer

Travels from: Queens, NY

“Mann explores the often oppressive, abusive, and bloody history of labor conditions and the merciless rise of capitalism with wit, snark, and comprehensive context… Riveting, enlightening, infuriating, and timely: compulsory reading.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

J. Albert Mann is a disability activist and award-winning author of books for young people. Her work focuses on history, social justice, equity, disability, eugenics, gender, economics, and labor. So…all the fun stuff.

Her first work of historical fiction—SCAR: A REVOLUTIONARY WAR NOVEL—highlights the large role Indigenous Nations played in the war, a conflict which they understood held tremendous stakes for them. Taking a hundred-year leap, Mann next wrote the biographical fiction WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW recounting the traumatic early life of Margaret Sanger (an iconic champion of women’s health) leading to Sanger’s fight to de-criminalize contraception. Sanger’s world, steeped in eugenics, prompted THE DEGENERATES, a novel depicting the lives of four young women swept up in the mass incarceration of disabled Americans during the early eugenics movement of the 1920s. Mann followed with FIX, a contemporary fictionalized account of the author’s life centering ableism and opioid addiction, and revealing how much farther our country still has to go to achieve full inclusion, access, and opportunity. Mann’s first nonfiction (June, 2024), SHIFT HAPPENS: THE HISTORY OF LABOR IN THE US brings together the themes found in her fiction to recount the story of America’s working class—the most violent labor history of any industrialized country in the world.

Her work has won the Massachusetts Book Award Honor, the Orbil Prize, the Premio Andersen Award, and been long-listed for the South Carolina Book Award. It has received a Disability Visibility Grant, been named a JLG Gold Standard Selection, a Bank Street Best Book, a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book, a Kirkus Best Book, and made the Best of YA reading lists of Buzz Feed, the TAYSHAS, and YART, while being selected for IBBY’s Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities.

Mann has her MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, is the Partner Liaison for the WNDB Internship Grant Committee, and sits on the board of the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature. She lives in Queens, New York.

J. Albert's Featured Titles

The History of U.S. Labor in 60 Minutes

Grades 6-12 , 60 minutes, serves both a classroom and assembly setting.

A fast-paced narrative intended to introduce civic competence and spark further inquiry.

From Christopher Columbus to the United Auto Workers’ Stand Up Strike in 2023, hear the stories of labor’s biggest moments. The Lokono Nation, the indentured and enslaved, Bacon and Leisler, the Sons of Liberty, Samuel Slater and the rise of the business association, monopolies and fraud and economic crises, the Federalists vs. The Democratic Republicans with their Bill of Rights, Nationals, Locals, speed ups, the Springtime of Peoples and the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age, the Great Upheaval, Haymarket, Homestead and the Pinkertons, Samuel Gompers and the AFL, trade unionism vs. industrial unionism, the Pullman Strike, Injunctions, the Populists, the Progressive Era and the IWW, the Shirtwaist Strike and Shirtwaist Fire, the Lawrence Strike…you get it.

History is Interconnected

Grades 6-12 , 45 minutes, serves up to 30 students.

A presentation designed to welcome complexity into historical study and debate.

When the proposal for SHIFT HAPPENS went out into the world, it contained a sample of four chapters…the lead up to WWI. Many editors rejected the book with notes reading, “…the sample felt a bit focused on issues outside of labor.” The lead up to World War I (and pretty much all wars the U.S. has engaged in) is directly related to labor. Labor readies the nations for war. Labor fights and dies in war. And it rebuilds the nation following it. Beyond these obvious points, in the lead up to and the aftermath of war (WWI, WWII, etc.) wages go down, hours increase, and unions are crushed. War and labor are linked. Also linked to labor…gender, disability, race, class, healthcare, mass incarceration, climate change, etc. When we connect labor to everything it is actually connected to, the strength and importance of labor is revealed, and is possibly the reason interconnection is often dissuaded.

Building a Critical Consciousness

Grades 6-12 , 45 minutes, serves up to 30 students.

An interactive workshop engaging students in questioning and critical thinking.

In the era of a maturing internet, students are bombarded with information. Sifting through and identifying these sources is not easy. There are many ways to evaluate a source (with fun techniques like the CRAP method) developed to help students determine a sources’ value. In conjunction with these techniques, building a critics consciousness is key. Reading a text for word usage, bias, dog-whistling, and prejudice is a learned skill. Students will work through historical documents to identify prejudice—moving forward in time to evaluate present-day sources. Building a critics consciousness is not only an important skill for identifying sources, but is central to participating in a healthy democracy.

What the Heck is a Red Scare?

Grades 6-12 , 60 minutes, serves both a classroom and assembly setting.

A fascinating dive into manufacturing fear for the purpose of power.

The U.S. had made a career out of fearing the socio-economic systems of socialism and communism. Throughout our four hundred-year history on the continent, we have lived through many mini red scares and two large red scares. Digging into economics, history, and culture, we unbury truths regarding our country’s issues with economic systems that don’t favor the one in place–capitalism, and take on the effects fearing red has had on our labor unions, public policy, foreign policy, and even on how we see ourselves as Americans.

Building Civic Competence is Love

Knowing how your country works is an act of love, not power.

Grades 6-12 , 45 minutes, serves up to 30 students

Learning how your local, state, and federal governments are structured, along with understanding your rights and responsibilities as a citizen makes you a better citizen, yes, but it also makes you a better person. Our neighbors—both near and far—are our community. And when we attempt to understand and get involved in that community we inevitably learn about each other. Understanding one another strengthens our democracy in a way that power never can or will.

Women: A Force of Labor

Women have always played an outsized role in the labor movement.

Grades 6-12 , 60 minutes, serves both a classroom and assembly setting.

Women were the first factory workers in the United States…followed quickly by their children. They led unions, strikes, and direct actions. They were shot at, punched in the face, had their ribs smashed, and were murdered for a ten-hour workday, a fair wage, a safe working environment. They stood up against their bosses at the age of sixteen and at the age of ninety three. And they did it all while wearing cumbersome corsets and skirts, nine months pregnant, and caring for elders and children…in the case of Dolores Huerta, eleven kids!

“Jennifer Albert Mann’s visits are always educational but if you ask my students what they remember, it’s how much fun they had. Mann is a bundle of energy and information whether she is removing the pain from revision or taking us through the intangible process of carrying through on an idea.” — Monte Vista Elementary, 2024

“She hooked the attention of my sixth graders (and myself!) with a batch of play-doh to help us think creatively. As a part of her exciting lesson, Jen challenged each of my students to write a short story with a unique prompt that she would randomly generate. Not only did she help them each start writing but after our time with her was over, she continued to email back and forth with them to read their developed stories. My class had a great time with Jen and I encourage other schools to invite her into their classrooms. Thank you Jen!” — Rose M. Gaffney Elementary School, 2024

“Jen Mann has collaborated with our middle school in Andover and we simply love her visits! Our students write a children’s book each year about Ancient Egypt and Jen joins us as an accomplished author and lover of books. She helps our classes think more deeply about the writing process and the steps involved in actually publishing a book. She encourages the use of imagination and reminds students that resiliency is a must when sometimes your initial ideas are not instantly loved by publishing houses. Jen is a great connector with youngsters and her inner child shines in each visit at our school. I would strongly urge you to schedule a visit with Jen at your school and feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.” — Doherty Middle School, 2020-2024

Reading List Link

Fix Book Club Guide

Resource Guides, Outlines & Timelines

Honors, Awards & Recognition

Massachusetts Book Award Honor
The Orbil Prize winner
The Premio Andersen Award
Long-listed for the South Carolina Book Award
Named a JLG Gold Standard Selection
Named a Bank Street Best Book
Named a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book
Named a Kirkus Best Book
Made the Best of YA reading lists of Buzz Feed, the TAYSHAS, and YART
An IBBY’s Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities
A finalist for the Rodari Prize

Media clips

YA Outside the Lines | INTERVIEW WITH J. ALBERT MANN AUTHOR OF SHIFT HAPPENS

Authors Guild | Member Spotlight: J Albert Mann

Publishers Weekly | In Conversation: J. Albert Mann and Lisa Yoskowitz

Media Kit

By clicking the link below you will be directed to a Google Docs Folder
where you can download author photos and cover images.

Mann

The History of U.S. Labor in 60 Minutes

History is Interconnected

Building a Critical Consciousness

What the Heck is a Red Scare?

Building Civic Competence is Love

Women: A Force of Labor

Honors, Awards & Recognition

Media clips

Media Kit

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