In-depth Written Interview

Jarrett Krosoczka, interviewed in his Northampton, MA home on March 26, 2014.

TEACHINGBOOKS: You are the author and illustrator of many successful picture books and graphic novels, and your work has twice won the Children's Choice Book Award. You've also been named the artist for the children's programming portion of the 2015 Collaborative Summer Library Program (CSLP). Have words and art always been an important part of your life?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I've always loved to draw. I don't remember a time in my life in which I didn't love to draw, and I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't drawing. I'm very lucky in that my grandfather was good at keeping scrapbooks of things like his high school memorabilia, and his photos from his time in the Navy. That was important to him, and he wanted to pass that habit on to me, as well. So every year he would help me archive a lot of my childhood artwork. Thanks to him, I still have the family portrait that I drew from when I was in preschool. I have the first book that I ever wrote when I was eight. I have piles of comics that I made when I was in elementary school.

So quite literally, what I'm doing today for my profession is a direct extension from what I was doing as a kid. The difference is, now it's my job. But I've always been drawing pictures that told stories.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Your grandparents played an instrumental role in your childhood.

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I was raised by my grandparents, Joseph and Shirley. They adopted me around my third birthday because my mother wasn't capable of raising me and my father wasn't in the picture at the time. In a way, I think I was their second chance at parenthood. They had raised five kids before me, and when they took me in, they were in their fifties. So they were more financially stable at that point, and they were able to give me a lot more of their time than they were able to give their other kids.

Mine was certainly a more unique childhood. You know, I'm a kid of the '80s and '90s, yet I was raised by two people who grew up in the Great Depression. They instilled in me, at a very young age, how important hard work is.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Please talk more about how your grandparents influenced you.

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: My grandfather was a self-made man. He worked with his hands and started his own business when he was in his twenties. I really feel like I'm carrying on that tradition. I work with my hands. I started my own business as an author and illustrator, and I try to work as hard as he did when he was alive.

My grandmother was an amazing force as well. I think at times she could be difficult to please. She adored and loved me, but she was also a very honest critic. I remember I'd constantly show her my artwork, and she would always be supportive while at the same time letting me know how she felt. But she was that way with all her children. When you get to be a certain age, sometimes your opinions can be very free flowing, I suppose.

TEACHINGBOOKS: In 2012, you gave a TED Talk in which you made a poignant analogy about substance abuse.

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: When I was preparing for that TED Talk I tried to come up with a way to describe for the audience what it's like to have a relationship with someone who suffers from addiction. In my case, that someone was my mother. While my grandparents were raising me, my mother spent my childhood in and out of jail or halfway homes. I recognized early on that my ability to draw came from her, and that she got her artistic talent from my grandfather, but I also had the impression that she didn't work hard and that she didn't do much with the gift that she was given.

In my TED Talk, I said that having a relationship with her was a lot like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, when Lucy pulls it away at the last second. Ever since my talk was published online, I've heard from a lot of people who really identified with that description. Because it doesn't matter how much time passes—you'll still think that maybe this time it will work out. Maybe this time this person won't disappoint you. But like Charlie Brown, you end up missing the football and landing on your back again.

TEACHINGBOOKS: How did your love of art shape you as a child?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I was a very shy kid. I didn't play sports, and I spent a fair amount of time alone. For me, art was a lifeline. When you're a kid, being creative, tapping into your imagination, and having an artistic outlet in your life, regardless of your circumstances, is very therapeutic. I think that when a young person experiences trauma in his or her life, it's even more important. So art was my lifeline. It's how I made friends. Art was my thing. I was always the kid in class who was the artist.

TEACHINGBOOKS: What inspired you to consider a career as an author-illustrator?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: When I was 17, my high school art teacher brought in two books: The Garden of Abdul Gesazi by Chris Van Allsburg, and The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer, which was illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher. Until that day, I had never given picture books that much thought. I had a substitute teacher in sixth grade tell me that I could work for Disney after she saw a picture I'd drawn of Donald Duck. Even that early on, I thought that was a terrible idea because I'd always loved inventing my own characters. But by the time I was a senior, I'd been reading X-Men and Spider-Man, and I thought that in terms of an art career, my only choice was to go work at Marvel or some other company where I'd draw someone else's characters.

After seeing those picture books, and making one of my own, I realized there are other options. By the time I graduated, I was in the unique position of knowing what kind of college I wanted to attend, and what I wanted to study there. I wanted to go to art school, and I wanted write and illustrate children's books.

TEACHINGBOOKS: You eventually attended the Rhode Island School of Design.

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: RISD rejected my first application, so I went to a different college my freshman year. But I applied again and was accepted as a sophomore. That was a good thing, because even though I was making friends at my first school, I realized that I needed to be around a bunch of other artists during college so that I could see what was possible.

I spent a rigorous three years in Providence working my tail off and growing as an artist. I don't know if the best word is anxious or eager, or perhaps both, but I wanted so badly to get my career going that during my sophomore year at RISD, I designed an independent study in which I wrote and illustrated children's books with the professor who taught the children's book course. Her picture-book course was only for juniors, so that's why I wanted to do an independent study.

When I was a junior I ended up taking her picture-book class, too, and we all met every Wednesday from 9:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. It was the best day of the week. Of my entire college career, being in that class is my most favorite memory. We spent our time dissecting picture books and writing.

TEACHINGBOOKS: At what point did you begin submitting your work for publication?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: My first professional book submission was actually a book I'd written in my picture book class, when I was a junior. I knew rejections would be part of my life, and sure enough, it was rejected. I kept sending it out every couple of months to a different publisher and it would come back. But submitting my work was interesting because sometimes, along with the rejection, I would get feedback from editors complimenting me the way I presented myself. I'd taken an internship with a graphic designer in Boston, just on my own, and I learned from her how she organized her business and how she presented herself. I learned that everything that you send out is important, right down to the kind of stamps you choose and how you affix the stamps to the envelope.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Now that you've published so many books, is it a fair generalization to say that humor plays a significant role in your work? You've created a tremendous number of funny characters and plots, from punk rocking farm animals to lunch ladies fighting crime.

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I think humor is something that was ingrained in me from my grandparents. They were so funny. I was raised by two hilarious people. Some of the happiest memories I have are of me sitting on the couch opposite my grandfather and just hearing his belly laugh when we would watch Cheers or Night Court together.

And could he and my grandmother trade barbs—I mean, you could just sit there at the kitchen table and listen to them go back and forth like some kind of comedy routine. I remember my grandfather saying, "Well, it's like I always say, if you've got it, flaunt it." And without missing a beat my grandmother would say, "Yeah, well, that's the trouble with you. You've always flaunted it whether you had it or not."

Kids sometimes ask me why I'm so funny, and my inner-self wants to tell them, "I had a tough childhood." But it's actually pretty true. I think that when you face challenges as a kid, humor is something that can help you get through it.

Nowadays, as far as my work is concerned, I actually take writing humorously very seriously, because I think there's an art to it.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Your Lunch Lady graphic novel series shines a spotlight on a member of the school community who serves up justice as well as meals.

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: Yes, at its core, this series focuses on the idea that there might be a person in your life who you see every day, who actually has all this stuff going on, and you don't realize it because you don't take the time to strike up a conversation or give them a second look. In this case, the person is a lunch lady who fights crime.

The wild thing about the Lunch Lady series is how many actual cafeteria employees I've heard from who talk about how the books have changed their relationships with their students. I was visiting a school a couple weeks ago, and they made these great art displays where kids made their own lunch lady characters and used the actual cafeteria staff in part of the art. This one lunch lady told me that there were fifth and sixth graders who, for the first time in their six or seven years at the school, are addressing her by her name every day. I also recently gave a lecture to a group of lunch ladies in a school district, and one of them told her director, "You know what message I got out of this? It's that I'm important."

We need to remember that everybody has a role. Everybody has something important to bring to the table. In the end, I think my books do celebrate the unique spirit of the individual, and they celebrate creativity, and it's really neat to hear from people about what they get out of my books.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Your tenth Lunch Lady book, Lunch Lady and the Schoolwide Scuffle, is the series finale. What factored into your decision to conclude her adventures?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I have always said that book ten will be the last Lunch Lady story for the foreseeable future. It's funny; from the very beginning, when I wrote my first book, Good Night, Monkey Boy, I said to myself, the last thing I want to do is write a book called Good Morning, Monkey Boy. I didn't want to stay with one character forever. I always wanted to create a wide range of characters and stories.

Of course, it turns out that it's been a great honor to create the Lunch Lady character, and to be the Lunch Lady guy. But it's been a taxing schedule. The first Lunch Lady book came out in the summer of 2009, and it was published simultaneously with the second volume. Putting out two ninety-six-page Lunch Lady books a year since then has been tiring. I've had so much fun with it, but I think ten is a good number.

I don't know that the adventures are over forever; I think it's the kind of thing where I could maybe come back to it in five or ten years and make another Lunch Lady book, when I have renewed energy and excitement for the characters. But right now, I'm at the stage where you feel like you're at a great party, but the last thing you want to do is stay at the party until the host is washing the dishes. You want to leave while the party is awesome and you still have these great feelings about how much fun you've had.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Please talk about your creative process. How did you get started with Lunch Lady, for example?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: Lunch Lady actually lived in my sketchbook for four years before I ever had anything to show my publisher. That's because, when I first draw a character, I'm just getting to know them. It's the early stages of development, so I'm not focused on drawing the character consistently. I'm more concerned with exploring different options.

So when I was inventing the lunch lady character, one of the decisions I grappled with early on was, would she wear a costume or not when she was fighting crime? Would she change out of her lunch lady costume and then somehow have a cape or a mask? Ultimately I decided against that, because I felt that the humor in the story comes from seeing your average lunch lady doing things like throwing a roundhouse kick at a robot's face. It comes from seeing the lunch lady in action. So if she were suddenly dressed up as a superhero, the humor would be lost.

In the end, what I decided on in my design for the Lunch Lady character was that I would use the attributes of how a lunch lady dresses, and figure out how could those items could stand in as doubles for the tools of a superhero comic. So her dishwashing gloves look like superhero gloves. Her apron acts like a cape. You'll often see in the illustrations that I'm allowing her cape to billow in the wind just as you might expect Superman's cape to billow in the wind. And you know, the tie behind her apron is not unlike a ninja mask.

I should also say that the Lunch Lady books are written in a style that's directly inspired by the comics that I made when I was in fifth grade. I reread all of those comics, and I tried to replicate the very direct language I used as a fifth grader for the Lunch Lady books.

TEACHINGBOOKS: You write and illustrate picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books. Do you approach each kind of book differently?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: At the core of everything I do is telling stories with pictures. As those stories are developing, I usually find that they'll naturally gravitate toward being a picture book or a graphic novel or a chapter book. It depends on the breadth of the story I'm trying to tell. If the story starts becoming very involved, and there are mysteries unfolding and suddenly there are multiple characters and plot lines, it's soon pretty clear that this is not going to be a picture book.

But my initial approaches to picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books are really all one and the same in that I'm focused on a character, and the character always comes first for me. The character, or characters, are the first thing that I sketch out, and I spend months and years drawing them and getting to know them until I'm eventually ready to write their story.

What I will say is that I believe comparing picture books to graphic novels is like comparing green apples to red apples. They have so much in common. They both rely on the words and pictures to work equally to tell the story. There has to be a balance, though, so that the words and pictures not stepping on each other's toes or repeating themselves. A graphic novel is a lot longer and a picture book is shorter, but that's not to say one is easier or more difficult than the other. It's just a different way of writing a story.

On the other hand, a middle-grade novel is like a pineapple for me. I'm really visually minded, and I've always been comfortable with telling stories with words and pictures equally. I had to learn that with a novel, I couldn't stop and think about the illustrations until I had written the manuscript and gone through a few revisions with my editor. That's because the illustrations in the novel are used to call attention to certain parts of the story, to perhaps embellish them, but they don't function in the same way as they do in a picture book or graphic novel. The illustrations I include in my middle-grade novels are also used to keep the reader with the book. I open up every chapter with a full-page illustration because I know that's going to be a carrot that I'll dangle over readers to hold their interest, to coax them to keep reading, and to turn to the next chapter.

TEACHINGBOOKS: How do you create your illustrations, and what influences you, artistically?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: The majority of my picture book illustrations are straight acrylic paintings. As an illustration student at RISD, your first year in the department is filled with wire drawing and painting classes, even though you would have spent your freshman year of college in similar drawing classes. So when I was a sophomore at RISD, in the first year of the illustration program, I had to learn how to paint. At one point we were told to copy famous works of art. I had to make my own copy of an El Greco painting and a John Singer Sargent painting.

That's how I learned how to paint, which is the same way I learned how to draw as a kid: by copying some of my favorite cartoon characters. El Greco and John Singer Sargent and Charles Shultz and Bill Watterson all have had an equal influence on my work.

My book Peanut Butter and Jellyfish is the first picture book I did where the illustrations were not created with acrylic paintings. That's because, after 10 books of straight acrylic painting, even though I varied the style a little bit, I wanted to force myself to find a new way to create art that was visually distinct from my other books.

So Peanut Butter and Jellyfish is a digital collage of abstract acrylic paintings. I would draw the characters with black ink—which, incidentally, is exactly how I create the art for Lunch Lady—and then scan that line work and use it as a template for the acrylic paintings. From there I created a whole series of abstract paintings of different colors and different textures, and catalogued all of that artwork in my computer. So if, for example, I needed a certain shade of blue, I could easily access the file and pick up that image.

TEACHINGBOOKS: A few of your books have been optioned for movies. What has that process been like?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: You know, having a project optioned to be a film is such an emotional roller coaster because you have absolutely zero control over it—not just in terms of the outcome, but whether or not it's even going to happen. I've had things fall apart. At one point DreamWorks optioned Punk Farm, and a year later, they changed their minds, even though it was announced on the cover of Variety. Then MGM picked it up, and they've been developing it instead. The Lunch Lady series is in development, too. But there are plenty of other things that have gotten interest, and then nothing came of it. And at that point, you really just have to stay focused on what's important. For me, that's concentrating on what I love and do best, and that's making books. And it's nice that when I get a contract for a book, I know it's going to happen.

TEACHINGBOOKS: Your website, studiojjk.com, introduces visitors to you and your work, and it also provides a fascinating look at different sections of your sketchbook. What was your thought process behind the sketchbook portion of your site?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: When I look back, I think that as a kid, I would have been so excited if I'd had the chance to go online and look through, say, Jim Davis's sketchbooks and see early drawings of Garfield. I would have absolutely gone nuts for that. Every now and then in the Garfield Treasuries, if you were lucky, at the back of the book there might have been one or two pages of sketches that provided glimpses of Garfield in progress. I loved seeing those because I always wanted to know how characters were made or came to be—and because I was making these books too.

Around the time I graduated from college, a lot of teachers were saying that websites were a waste of time; that no one would spend any time looking at art online. But I made one anyway and used it as a portfolio website, and that was actually how I got my first book contract. One of my promotional postcards led the editor to my site, and the book was published in 2001.

That year, I realized that the audience for my website was now going to be comprised of educators and parents and kids, so I changed it from being a portfolio website to more of an informational gateway to help visitors get to know me and my books. I really wanted it to be a portal for young readers and young artists, so they could see where some of the early inspiration for my books came from—and that meant sharing lots of old sketches.

I feel very fortunate to be a part of this wonderful digital world that we live in, and to be able to use it to provide a place where kids can get a better understanding of my books and where I'm coming from, creatively. It's fun, and it ends up generating even more enthusiasm for kids to get back to reading the book. Even if you have a video game on your website, the students who are engaging with the characters in the game are going to be even more excited to read about them in the book.

TEACHINGBOOKS: In addition to young readers and educators, are you able to connect to other authors and illustrators through the Web and social media? Is there a strong online community of children's book creators?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: Absolutely. I'm lucky to be doing what I do for a living, and especially at a time when there are so many talented people out there who are not only making great books, but who are also wonderful people to communicate with, too. I'm in constant conversation with my colleagues online, over social media, and when we have the chance to actually see each other in person at conferences or book festivals, it's a fantastic treat.

I think that being an author and illustrator can be very isolating. You don't have a group of colleagues that you can meet at the water cooler every day. But still, you do have many of the same experiences. These are all people who have gone through a certain amount of rejection to get to the point where they were published, people who have had to work really hard to get to where they are, and for those of us who are illustrators, we share the common language of having grown up an artist.

TEACHINGBOOKS: You're a dad to two young children. Has fatherhood changed your work?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: When I became a father, everybody was telling me how amazed I would be by how much having kids changes your work. And it's true that it changed my work in the sense that I'm exhausted and I'm now supporting children. But also, it's changed my work because all of the picture books that I'm writing now are directly related to my new life as a father. I think that's because, for me, having a kid allows me to better remember what it was like to actually be a kid. When you have a kid you're able to see how your child perceives the world every day, and when you get on the floor with her and you look up, you see at how big and scary the world can sometimes be. It really takes you back to what it was like to be three or four or five years old.

My kids have directly influenced my work, too. A while back we were at a birthday party in the park with my daughter, and she lost her balloon. It went flying up in the air, and she was devastated. I immediately recalled how horrible it was to lose a balloon, because it's gone forever, and I was reminded of a book I wrote when I was a senior at RISD called Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches in the Sand. The book was all about life's little indignities, like dropping your sandwich in the sand when you're at the beach, or stepping in a puddle and getting your socks wet. But there was no positive twist. Basically, the book was just about things that were terrible.

But when my daughter lost her balloon, my wife reminded her that her grandparents were on a trip that day, flying on an airplane. So everything was okay, because now Grandma and Grandpa would get to enjoy seeing her balloon from the sky. That made my daughter much calmer and more peaceful about her loss. It hit me then that I finally knew how to finish writing the book I'd thought of 13 years before: there needed to be a positive twist to each of those indignities.

The final book will come out in the fall of 2015. It's called It's Tough to Lose Your Balloon, and it's all about how when life throws you these kinds of challenges, you can look at them in a different way and realize they're not all that terrible.

TEACHINGBOOKS: You've shared your books with many audiences over the years. Do you notice a difference between the way adult readers and young readers interpret them?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I think sometimes adults forget to read the pictures. For instance, as grownups, we might be more likely to quickly thumb past the title page and the copyright and dedication pages to get going with the text, but among those pages may be pictures that are telling the tale—and if we're not reading the pictures, we're missing half the story.

Whenever I read Peanut Butter and Jellyfish to big groups, when I finish the book, I ask if anyone can tell me who the fourth character in the book is. And every time, nearly every single kid can tell me it's the clam. But the grownups in the audience seem to avoid eye contact, as if they're hoping that I don't call on them to ask them because they have no idea.

TEACHINGBOOKS: The 2015 Collaborative Summer Library Program's children's theme is "Every Hero Has a Story." What has it been like to create the artwork for this year's program?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I was incredibly honored to be asked. I was also stunned and excited because I look for those posters every single summer. It's a thrill to be a part of the program. And I'm especially excited about the theme, because I think it's really pertinent to a lot of work, which is writing stories of everyday heroes.

For the early literacy program, I used characters from Peanut Butter and Jellyfish, and I drew them wearing a lot of different hats, like a firefighter's hat and a police officer's hat, which represent some of the heroes that surround us every day.

For the children's program, I used the heroes from my Platypus Police Squad series in the art. I tried to make the children's poster feel like a poster for an action movie, because summer reading is competing directly with summer blockbusters. I wanted the poster to have the feel of an explosive, action-filled adventure that you're going to experience at your library.

TEACHINGBOOKS: You've been writing and illustrating for several years, now. What do you do when you get stuck?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I think the best thing you can do if you get stuck is to focus on something else for a while, and you'll be able to come back to it and know what to do. These days, I'm fortunate to have many different things going on at once, and that keeps me from getting stuck. I'll have maybe three books in progress, with one in the early stages of development, the second where I'm wrapping up the manuscript, and the third in the final art phase. So when I'm writing or inventing the plot or characters for one story and I find I'm getting stuck, I'll just move on to something else I have going on and come back to it later.

I think that sitting and staring at a blank piece of paper is just the worst thing that you can do to yourself as an author. You really can't force creativity, and I've had to learn over the years that I need to be patient, and that I need to write all of my ideas down as they come to me. I try to keep a sketchbook with me at all times, and if I don't have it, I might e-mail myself an idea or a line of dialogue instead.

TEACHINGBOOKS: What is your typical workday like?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: In an ideal world I would have a typical workday, and by that I mean there would be a regular rhythm to it. But honestly, the only regular thing about my life these days is that my kids go to school Monday through Friday. If it weren't for that, I might not even be fully aware of what day of the week it is.

When I'm home and I'm not traveling, ideally, I'll wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 and get a couple of hours of work done before anybody wakes up. But more often than not, a kid's woken up with a nightmare the night before and I'm exhausted, or something else happens that keeps me from a fresh and early start.

One thing I don't do is pull all-nighters anymore. Pulling all-nighters is a young man's game! It's better if I try to wake up early in the morning, and then get work done again at the end of that day.

TEACHINGBOOKS: What do you like to tell teachers and librarians when you talk to them?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: I love it when I have the opportunity to speak to a roomful of educators, most especially because I get to thank them for the fact that I have a career. If it weren't for educators sharing my books with their students, I wouldn't be able to have these books published in the first place.

I also share with them the vivid memories I have of teachers over the years, and how much those people mean to me. I do that because I think it's really important that educators feel validated, and I want to remind them of how important they are to their students' lives.

TEACHINGBOOKS: What do you enjoy telling students?

JARRETT KROSOCZKA: Talking to students is so much fun. When I do, I like to remind them that they can be creative any time. It doesn't have to take a homework assignment or a grownup telling them, "Make a book," for them to get involved in a project. They can take it upon themselves to be creative. Kids have so many distractions and pressures in their lives that sometimes they have to make a conscious decision to take out some blank pieces of paper and crayons and start expressing themselves. They have the power in their own hands to create. I also like to remind them that there are many different ways to be creative. They could write nonfiction or poetry, or they could make comics, and they can work alone or collaborate with a friend.

I start every school visit by showing students a self-portrait I made in preschool, and a book I wrote when I was eight. I do this because I think that when young readers and young artists and young writers look at a published book, they have a hard time connecting to it beyond enjoying the story. My guess is that a lot of them think there's no way they could ever create something like that. But when they see this crayon drawing I made when I was five, and this colored pencil-sketched book that I wrote when I was eight, they can see a direct connection between where they are and where they can go.

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