Meet Jerry Craft

author of New Kid and Class Act

Did you like to read when you were a kid?

Definitely not. I only read Marvel Comics and anything I HAD to read for school. Occasionally, I would read my comics cover to cover, but those were mainly the issues that had more action scenes. Other pages I would quickly scan in order to get the gist.

What inspired you to become a writer?

When I was young, I never had a book that I bonded with. Or absolutely loved, like how my two sons and their friends loved the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. As I got older, I felt that the lack of books with characters who looked and acted like me and my friends, was probably the biggest reason. So I decided to make the books I wished I had when I was a kid.

Did you always like to draw?

No, I always LOVED to draw.

What was your middle school experience like? How much Jerry is there in Jordan Banks from New Kid?

New Kid is a story fueled by decades of research, first as me being a kid going to a private school, then years later as a father of two private-school sons. So all of the subtleties and nuances that I touch on are from my real-life experience.

The whole “wanting to go to art school but getting forced to go to a predominately white private school” is my life. But for me, it was just high school (grades 9-12). Before that, I went to smaller private schools that were probably 96% African American.

What is it like to be the only person to have won a Newbery Medal, a Coretta Scott King Author Award, and a Kirkus Prize.

Even a year later, I am still trying to take it all in. But it is definitely a tremendous honor.

About Jerry

Jerry Craft is a New York Times bestselling author-illustrator who has worked on numerous picture books, graphic novels, and middle grade novels, including the Newbery award-winning graphic novel, New Kid. Jerry is the creator of Mama’s Boyz, an award-winning syndicated comic strip. He has won five African American Literary Awards and is a cofounder of the Schomburg Center’s Annual Black Comic Book Festival. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and now lives in Connecticut. Visit him online at www.jerrycraft.com.