Cover of a book titled "The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth" featuring a girl in a baseball uniform swinging a bat at a baseball game.
The Girl Who Changed Little League. Co-authored with Maria Pepe.
Book cover of "Long-Armed Ludy and the First Women's Olympics" illustrating a woman with long arms holding a shot put, wearing a white shirt with an American flag patch and the number 5, waving with her right hand.
Cover of children's book by Jean L.S. Patrick titled "Four Famous Faces," featuring a bison, a grizzly bear, an elk, a prairie dog, a falcon, and a bat in a nature setting, illustrated by Renee Graef.
Book cover titled "Face to Face with Mount Rushmore," by Jean L.S. Patrick, featuring a stylized portrait of Mount Rushmore with a star emblem in the bottom left corner.
Cover of a children's book by Jean L.S. Patrick titled 'If I Had a Snowplow,' showing a young child in winter clothing, playing with a toy snowplow in the snow.
Cover of a book titled 'Who Carved the Mountain? The Story of Mount Rushmore' by Jean L.S. Patrick, illustrated by Renée Graef, featuring children pointing and taking pictures in front of the Mount Rushmore monument.
Book cover for 'Dolley Madison' by Jean L. S. Patrick, featuring a portrait of Dolley Madison in the center surrounded by illustrations of 19th-century scenes and people.
Cover of a book titled 'Mount Rushmore Memories', featuring a collage of black-and-white and sepia-toned photographs of Mount Rushmore and people visiting the site.
Cover of a book titled 'Cows, Cats, and Kids: A Veterinarian's Family at Work' featuring a girl in a blue shirt petting a sheep.
Cover of the book titled 'The Jumping-Off Place' by Marian Hurd McNeely, featuring a pastoral scene from homestead days in South Dakota with a child riding a horse and a boy walking, in front of small farm buildings under a partly cloudy sky.

The Girl Who Changed Little League: The True Story of Maria Pepe and Her Battle to Play Ball.
Illustrated by Sarah Green. Christy Ottaviano Books/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2026.
- Junior Library Guild Selection, Gold Standard.

Long-armed Ludy and the First Women’s Olympics.
Illustrated by Adam Gustavson. Charlesbridge, 2017.
- Junior Library Guild Selection

The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth.
Illustrated by Jeni Reeves. Lerner/Carolrhoda, 2000.
- American Booksellers Association Kids’ Pick of the List
- Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year
- Storytelling World Award, Honors - Stories for Adolescent Listeners
- Laura Ingalls Wilder Award - South Dakota Reading Council

Sports

Books and Awards

Four Famous Faces. Illustrated by Renee Graef. 2014.
- Publication of the Year, Association of Partners for Public Lands (APPL)

Mount Rushmore Memories. Edited with Debbie Ketel. 2011, 2021. (For older readers & adults)
- First Place, Media Award. National Association of Interpretation
- First Place, Media Award. Association of Partners for Public Lands (APPL)
- Silver Medal, Regional Nonfiction. Independent Publishers Book Association
- Finalist, Foreword Book Award

Face to Face with Mount Rushmore. Illustrated by Patrick Faricy. Designed by Amanda Summers, 2008.

Who Carved the Mountain? The Story of Mount Rushmore. Illustrated by Renee Graef. 2005.
- Honorable Mention, Independent Book Publishers Association
- Nominee, Prairie Pasque Award. South Dakota Library Association.


Mount Rushmore

General

Cows, Cats, and Kids: A Veterinarian’s Family at Work. Photography by Alvis Upitis. Boyds Mills Press, 2003.
- Junior Library Guild Selection

Dolley Madison. Lerner, 2002.

If I Had a Snowplow. Boyds Mills Press, 2001.

The U.S. Civil War, 2007.
Stars and Planets, 2008.
The Great Book of States, 2011.

Pen name (J.P. Allyce)

And one more…

The Jumping-off Place. By Marian Hurd McNeely. Afterward by Jean L.S. Patrick. South Dakota Historical Society Press. Longman’s Publishers, 1929.

This book tells the story of four kids who homestead on their own in Tripp County, South Dakota, in the early 1900s. Although it’s fiction, the story is told against the backdrop of the last era of homesteading in the Dakotas.

This book won the Newbery Honor Award in 1930. The South Dakota Historical Society Press re-issued the book in 2008, giving it another boost in popularity.