The students at Bennett Hemmenway Elementary School will tell you that the Cafetorium is where some of the school’s coolest events happen. Indeed, on Wednesday, January 9, third and fourth graders were treated to a visit from author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka.
Krosoczka, who has published nearly 40 books including the popular Lunch Lady series, additions to the Jedi Academy series, and most recently a graphic memoir, Hey, Kiddo, delighted this audience before he even took the microphone. As the students filed in and took their seats, a visual presentation featuring Krosoczka at work sketching and drawing filled a large screen as an upbeat tune swept through the room, leaving us all with head-bobbing excitement.
Francesca Tramboulakis, who organized the event on behalf of the Bennett-Hemenway PTO’s Cultural Arts Committee, introduced Jarrett Kroscoczka to a warm welcome from the students, who then listened and watched, completely enrapt. Kroscoczka, who grew up in Worcester, first shared how he feels lucky to be able to do the job of both author and illustrator for the books he publishes. Then he told the students a bit about his background and the journey that brought him to the front of the Cafetorium.
“It all started when I was a kid,” he told them. “I loved to draw.” And he loved books, his favorite being “The Mouse and The Motorcycle” by Beverly Cleary, of which he still has his childhood copy. He read everything he could, including the comic strips in the newspaper and treasuries of favorites such as Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, and Snoopy. He loved Batman.
“Being a young reader you can find a format you are excited about and a character you are obsessed over, but sometimes you will be asked to read something else,” he shared. This is how he came to read Anne of Green Gables and realized he loved it and wanted to read everything written by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Meanwhile Krosoczka fueled his love of drawing, spending as much of his free time as possible using his imagination, learning how to draw by copying characters in the books he read and super heroes in comic books. In third grade, he created his first book, The Owl Who Thought He Was the Best Flyer. The last sentence of the “About the Author” page read, “He liked making this book.” And it’s true, he told the kids, “I loved using my imagination. Writing is using your imagination on paper. ”
In high school, Krosoczka was hired by the high school newspaper to be a cartoonist and a particularly thoughtful art teacher brought in some books to inspire him, which they did. He knew he loved telling stories with words and pictures, and he went to art school for college, where things got real, with foundation classes in color, drawing, and painting. “I was also learning through observation,” Krosoczka told the attentive young crowd, undoubtedly inspired by this Wednesday morning talk.
Though he continued to make his own comics and study art, Kroscoczka had not neglected his love of writing. In a college course, he wrote a book titled “Hello Said the Slug,” which he decided to send to a publisher. “Maybe they would like it and make a bunch of copies,” he thought. “Did they like it,” he asked the kids?
“No,” he answered his own question. But in the true message of perseverance, the young author/illustrator sent his book to a second potential publisher, then a third, fourth, fifth and so on. While the answers were not “yes,” he kept writing and he wrote another book. This book, Josh Had A Bad Haircut, he too sent out to publishers. They too said no.
He told the kids this brought him to a new idea. “Maybe I could get a job as an illustrator, the person who draws pictures for books.” So he made 80 postcards featuring a character and sent them out to picture book publishers. No jobs as an illustrator came his way. He mailed 80 more postcards and then 80 more, and after two years of the story going like this, the image on the screen behind him settles on a pile of rejection letters. But what did he do? He kept writing of course and it was then that he created Good Night Monkey.
With his next round of 80 postcards, he got one reply, from an editor at Random House Picture Books. She liked his work and said to let him know if he were ever in New York City. “Well, do you think I just happened to be in New York City the next week,” he asked the students. “Yes!” He of course was in New York City the next week, and he met with that editor. She liked Goodnight Monkey, and in 2001 it was published and they sent copies everywhere, just like he always dreamed would happen for one of his books. “And I am still writing, and the books that I write that my publisher likes, they publish.”
Then he told the kids how he makes the books. Sometimes he works at a drafting table or desk, or in a comfy chair. Sometimes he is working while travelling on a book tour, a plane or in a coffee shop. It was on a book visit to his old elementary school where he ran into the lunch lady that inspired his now famous Lunch Lady series. He soon realized he needed to find a new format to tell this story, which would feature a lunch lady and her sidekick Betty, and their spy tools that would disguise as regular kitchen items. In the process, Krosoczka returned to his love of comics, and thus Lunch Lady was born as a graphic novel.
His presentation continued with glimpses of everything from how pencil and ink and brushes come together to create drawings to how he was invited to write stories for the Star Wars Academy series. Bennett-Hemenway third and fourth graders were the recipients of so much wisdom and creative encouragement that morning, it’s hard to capture it all here.
As he generously signed books for the classes after his presentation, I had a chance to thank Jarrett for coming and for creating his books. I especially noted his recent graphic memoir, Hey Kiddo, which tells his story of growing up in addiction and finding his survival through his imagination. I asked him about his message for kids impacted by addiction. “It’s the same as my message to all kids, really,” he said. “Find your passion. Whatever it is – drawing or writing, sports or using your interpersonal skills. Find that thing and do it as much as you can. Know that your childhood realities do not have to perpetuate themselves into adulthood.”
You can learn more about Jarrett Krosoczka and his work at his website: www.studiojjk.com
Issue Date:
February, 2019
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