0:00:00.513,0:00:03.266
Hello. My name is Jarrett Krosoczka,

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and I write and illustrate books for children for a living.

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So I use my imagination as my full-time job.

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But well before my imagination was my vocation,

0:00:15.221,0:00:17.949
my imagination saved my life.

0:00:17.949,0:00:20.436
When I was a kid, I loved to draw,

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and the most talented artist I knew

0:00:23.302,0:00:25.136
was my mother,

0:00:25.136,0:00:28.452
but my mother was addicted to heroin.

0:00:28.452,0:00:31.897
And when your parent is a drug addict,

0:00:31.897,0:00:35.236
it's kind of like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football,

0:00:35.236,0:00:37.732
because as much as you want to love on that person,

0:00:37.732,0:00:39.970
as much as you want to receive love from that person,

0:00:39.970,0:00:43.223
every time you open your heart, you end up on your back.

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So throughout my childhood, my mother was incarcerated

0:00:47.443,0:00:48.869
and I didn't have my father because

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I didn't even learn his first name until I was in the sixth grade.

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But I had my grandparents,

0:00:54.849,0:00:57.420
my maternal grandparents Joseph and Shirley,

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who adopted me just before my third birthday

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and took me in as their own,

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after they had already raised five children.

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So two people who grew up in the Great Depression,

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there in the very, very early '80s took on a new kid.

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I was the Cousin Oliver of the sitcom

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of the Krosoczka family,

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the new kid who came out of nowhere.

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And I would like to say that life was totally easy with them.

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They each smoked two packs a day, each, nonfiltered,

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and by the time I was six,

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I could order a Southern Comfort Manhattan,

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dry with a twist, rocks on the side,

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the ice on the side so you could fit more liquor in the drink.

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But they loved the hell out of me. They loved me so much.

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And they supported my creative efforts,

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because my grandfather was a self-made man.

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He ran and worked in a factory.

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My grandmother was a homemaker.

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But here was this kid who loved Transformers

0:01:51.710,0:01:55.851
and Snoopy and the Ninja Turtles,

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and the characters that I read about, I fell in love with,

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and they became my friends.

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So my best friends in life were the characters

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I read about in books.

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I went to Gates Lane Elementary School in Worcester, Massachusetts,

0:02:11.587,0:02:14.283
and I had wonderful teachers there,

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most notably in first grade Mrs. Alisch.

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And I just, I can just remember the love that she offered

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us as her students.

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When I was in the third grade,

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a monumental event happened.

0:02:28.832,0:02:31.176
An author visited our school, Jack Gantos.

0:02:31.176,0:02:34.616
A published author of books came to talk to us

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about what he did for a living.

0:02:37.114,0:02:40.488
And afterwards, we all went back to our classrooms

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and we drew our own renditions of his main character,

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Rotten Ralph.

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And suddenly the author appeared in our doorway,

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and I remember him sort of sauntering down the aisles,

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going from kid to kid looking at the desks, not saying a word.

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But he stopped next to my desk,

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and he tapped on my desk, and he said,

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"Nice cat." (Laughter)

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And he wandered away.

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Two words that made a colossal difference in my life.

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When I was in the third grade, I wrote a book for the first time,

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"The Owl Who Thought He Was The Best Flyer." (Laughter)

0:03:16.587,0:03:18.872
We had to write our own Greek myth,

0:03:18.872,0:03:21.715
our own creation story, so I wrote a story about an owl

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who challenged Hermes to a flying race,

0:03:25.658,0:03:27.769
and the owl cheated,

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and Hermes, being a Greek god, grew angry and bitter,

0:03:31.491,0:03:33.360
and turned the owl into a moon,

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so the owl had to live the rest of his life as a moon

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while he watched his family and friends play at night.

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Yeah. (Laughter)

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My book had a title page.

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I was clearly worried about my intellectual property when I was eight.

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(Laughter)

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And it was a story that was told with words and pictures,

0:03:54.586,0:03:56.774
exactly what I do now for a living,

0:03:56.774,0:04:00.461
and I sometimes let the words have the stage on their own,

0:04:00.461,0:04:03.531
and sometimes I allowed the pictures to work on their own

0:04:03.531,0:04:05.766
to tell the story.

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My favorite page is the "About the author" page.

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(Laughter)

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So I learned to write about myself in third person

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at a young age.

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So I love that last sentence: "He liked making this book."

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And I liked making that book because I loved using my imagination,

0:04:24.769,0:04:25.954
and that's what writing is.

0:04:25.954,0:04:28.469
Writing is using your imagination on paper,

0:04:28.469,0:04:31.440
and I do get so scared because I travel to so many schools now

0:04:31.440,0:04:34.497
and that seems like such a foreign concept to kids,

0:04:34.497,0:04:38.311
that writing would be using your imagination on paper,

0:04:38.311,0:04:42.390
if they're allowed to even write now within the school hours.

0:04:42.390,0:04:44.578
So I loved writing so much that I'd come home from school,

0:04:44.578,0:04:47.073
and I would take out pieces of paper,

0:04:47.073,0:04:48.994
and I would staple them together,

0:04:48.994,0:04:51.834
and I would fill those blank pages with words and pictures

0:04:51.834,0:04:55.510
just because I loved using my imagination.

0:04:55.510,0:04:57.622
And so these characters would become my friends.

0:04:57.622,0:05:00.682
There was an egg, a tomato, a head of lettuce and a pumpkin,

0:05:00.682,0:05:03.156
and they all lived in this refrigerator city,

0:05:03.156,0:05:05.978
and in one of their adventures they went to a haunted house

0:05:05.978,0:05:07.381
that was filled with so many dangers

0:05:07.381,0:05:12.065
like an evil blender who tried to chop them up,

0:05:12.065,0:05:18.007
an evil toaster who tried to kidnap the bread couple,

0:05:18.007,0:05:20.362
and an evil microwave who tried to melt their friend

0:05:20.362,0:05:23.759
who was a stick of butter. (Laughter)

0:05:23.759,0:05:25.962
And I'd make my own comics too,

0:05:25.962,0:05:28.099
and this was another way for me to tell stories,

0:05:28.099,0:05:31.330
through words and through pictures.

0:05:31.330,0:05:33.114
Now when I was in sixth grade,

0:05:33.114,0:05:35.970
the public funding all but eliminated the arts budgets

0:05:35.970,0:05:38.014
in the Worcester public school system.

0:05:38.014,0:05:41.398
I went from having art once a week

0:05:41.398,0:05:42.995
to twice a month

0:05:42.995,0:05:45.841
to once a month to not at all.

0:05:45.841,0:05:47.713
And my grandfather, he was a wise man,

0:05:47.713,0:05:49.548
and he saw that as a problem, because he knew

0:05:49.548,0:05:53.128
that was, like, the one thing I had. I didn't play sports.

0:05:53.128,0:05:55.910
I had art.

0:05:55.910,0:05:58.368
So he walked into my room one evening,

0:05:58.368,0:05:59.913
and he sat on the edge of my bed,

0:05:59.913,0:06:02.152
and he said, "Jarrett, it's up to you, but if you'd like to,

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we'd like to send you to the classes at the Worcester Art Museum."

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And I was so thrilled.

0:06:06.238,0:06:07.908
So from sixth through 12th grade,

0:06:07.908,0:06:09.909
once, twice, sometimes three times a week,

0:06:09.909,0:06:11.628
I would take classes at the art museum,

0:06:11.628,0:06:14.660
and I was surrounded by other kids who loved to draw,

0:06:14.660,0:06:18.064
other kids who shared a similar passion.

0:06:18.064,0:06:21.023
Now my publishing career began when I designed the cover

0:06:21.023,0:06:23.634
for my eighth grade yearbook,

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and if you're wondering about the style of dress I put our mascot in,

0:06:26.901,0:06:29.509
I was really into Bell Biv DeVoe and MC Hammer

0:06:29.509,0:06:33.370
and Vanilla Ice at the time. (Laughter)

0:06:33.370,0:06:37.263
And to this day, I still can do karaoke to "Ice, Ice Baby"

0:06:37.263,0:06:39.806
without looking at the screen.

0:06:39.806,0:06:43.316
Don't tempt me, because I will do it.

0:06:43.316,0:06:45.238
So I get shipped off to private school,

0:06:45.238,0:06:47.461
K through eight, public schools, but for some reason

0:06:47.461,0:06:49.836
my grandfather was upset that somebody

0:06:49.836,0:06:52.197
at the local high school had been stabbed and killed,

0:06:52.197,0:06:54.893
so he didn't want me to go there.

0:06:54.893,0:06:57.704
He wanted me to go to a private school, and he gave me an option.

0:06:57.704,0:06:59.440
You can go to Holy Name, which is coed,

0:06:59.440,0:07:01.813
or St. John's, which is all boys.

0:07:01.813,0:07:04.013
Very wise man, because he knew I would,

0:07:04.013,0:07:06.749
I felt like I was making the decision on my own,

0:07:06.749,0:07:08.545
and he knew I wouldn't choose St. John's,

0:07:08.545,0:07:10.243
so I went to Holy Name High School,

0:07:10.243,0:07:13.011
which was a tough transition because, like I said,

0:07:13.011,0:07:14.571
I didn't play sports,

0:07:14.571,0:07:17.052
and it was very focused on sports,

0:07:17.052,0:07:21.216
but I took solace in Mr. Shilale's art room.

0:07:21.216,0:07:23.714
And I just flourished here.

0:07:23.714,0:07:26.873
I just couldn't wait to get to that classroom every day.

0:07:26.873,0:07:29.160
So how did I make friends?

0:07:29.160,0:07:33.393
I drew funny pictures of my teachers -- (Laughter) --

0:07:33.393,0:07:36.150
and I passed them around.

0:07:36.150,0:07:39.948
Well, in English class, in ninth grade,

0:07:39.948,0:07:41.924
my friend John, who was sitting next to me,

0:07:41.924,0:07:44.639
laughed a little bit too hard.

0:07:44.639,0:07:46.920
Mr. Greenwood was not pleased.

0:07:46.920,0:07:50.827
(Laughter)

0:07:50.827,0:07:54.212
He instantly saw that I was the cause of the commotion,

0:07:54.212,0:07:58.227
and for the first time in my life, I was sent to the hall,

0:07:58.227,0:08:00.409
and I thought, "Oh no, I'm doomed.

0:08:00.409,0:08:03.614
My grandfather's just going to kill me."

0:08:03.614,0:08:05.175
And he came out to the hallway and he said,

0:08:05.175,0:08:06.293
"Let me see the paper."

0:08:06.293,0:08:11.357
And I thought, "Oh no. He thinks it's a note."

0:08:11.357,0:08:14.193
And so I took this picture, and I handed it to him.

0:08:14.193,0:08:17.406
And we sat in silence for that brief moment,

0:08:17.406,0:08:19.554
and he said to me,

0:08:19.554,0:08:22.917
"You're really talented." (Laughter)

0:08:22.917,0:08:25.606
"You're really good. You know, the school newspaper

0:08:25.606,0:08:27.989
needs a new cartoonist, and you should be the cartoonist.

0:08:27.989,0:08:31.615
Just stop drawing in my class."

0:08:31.615,0:08:33.949
So my parents never found out about it.

0:08:33.949,0:08:37.175
I didn't get in trouble. I was introduced to Mrs. Casey,

0:08:37.175,0:08:38.839
who ran the school newspaper,

0:08:38.839,0:08:43.411
and I was for three and a half years

0:08:43.411,0:08:45.787
the cartoonist for my school paper,

0:08:45.787,0:08:47.959
handling such heavy issues as,

0:08:47.959,0:08:51.067
seniors are mean,

0:08:51.067,0:08:53.663
freshmen are nerds,

0:08:53.663,0:08:59.468
the prom bill is so expensive. I can't believe how much it costs to go to the prom.

0:08:59.468,0:09:03.052
And I took the headmaster to task

0:09:03.052,0:09:06.915
and then I also wrote an ongoing story about a boy named Wesley

0:09:06.915,0:09:10.161
who was unlucky in love, and I just swore up and down

0:09:10.161,0:09:12.277
that this wasn't about me,

0:09:12.277,0:09:16.079
but all these years later it was totally me.

0:09:16.079,0:09:18.207
But it was so cool because I could write these stories,

0:09:18.207,0:09:19.385
I could come up with these ideas,

0:09:19.385,0:09:21.688
and they'd be published in the school paper,

0:09:21.688,0:09:24.298
and people who I didn't know could read them.

0:09:24.298,0:09:27.353
And I loved that thought, of being able to share my ideas

0:09:27.353,0:09:29.683
through the printed page.

0:09:29.698,0:09:32.879
On my 14th birthday, my grandfather and my grandmother

0:09:32.879,0:09:35.124
gave me the best birthday present ever:

0:09:35.124,0:09:40.043
a drafting table that I have worked on ever since.

0:09:40.043,0:09:41.299
Here I am, 20 years later,

0:09:41.299,0:09:45.843
and I still work on this table every day.

0:09:45.843,0:09:48.253
On the evening of my 14th birthday,

0:09:48.253,0:09:52.418
I was given this table, and we had Chinese food.

0:09:52.418,0:09:56.038
And this was my fortune:

0:09:56.038,0:09:58.315
"You will be successful in your work."

0:09:58.315,0:10:01.143
I taped it to the top left hand of my table,

0:10:01.143,0:10:03.102
and as you can see, it's still there.

0:10:03.102,0:10:07.003
Now I never really asked my grandparents for anything.

0:10:07.003,0:10:09.347
Well, two things: Rusty, who was a great hamster

0:10:09.347,0:10:13.483
and lived a great long life when I was in fourth grade.

0:10:13.483,0:10:16.302
(Laughter)

0:10:16.302,0:10:19.499
And a video camera.

0:10:19.499,0:10:21.739
I just wanted a video camera.

0:10:21.739,0:10:24.220
And after begging and pleading for Christmas,

0:10:24.220,0:10:26.651
I got a second-hand video camera,

0:10:26.651,0:10:30.483
and I instantly started making my own animations

0:10:30.483,0:10:32.683
on my own,

0:10:32.683,0:10:35.363
and all throughout high school I made my own animations.

0:10:35.363,0:10:38.460
I convinced my 10th grade English teacher to allow me

0:10:38.460,0:10:40.787
to do my book report on Stephen King's "Misery"

0:10:40.787,0:10:45.551
as an animated short. (Laughter)

0:10:45.551,0:10:48.407
And I kept making comics.

0:10:48.407,0:10:52.351
I kept making comics, and at the Worcester Art Museum,

0:10:52.351,0:10:56.584
I was given the greatest piece of advice by any educator I was ever given.

0:10:56.584,0:10:59.473
Mark Lynch, he's an amazing teacher

0:10:59.473,0:11:01.688
and he's still a dear friend of mine,

0:11:01.688,0:11:04.095
and I was 14 or 15,

0:11:04.095,0:11:07.116
and I walked into his comic book class halfway through the course,

0:11:07.116,0:11:08.930
and I was so excited, I was beaming.

0:11:08.930,0:11:12.231
I had this book that was how to draw comics in the Marvel way,

0:11:12.231,0:11:14.536
and it taught me how to draw superheroes,

0:11:14.536,0:11:16.864
how to draw a woman, how to draw muscles

0:11:16.864,0:11:18.790
just the way they were supposed to be

0:11:18.790,0:11:21.615
if I were to ever draw for X-Men or Spiderman.

0:11:21.615,0:11:24.507
And all the color just drained from his face,

0:11:24.507,0:11:26.246
and he looked at me, and he said,

0:11:26.246,0:11:29.016
"Forget everything you learned."

0:11:29.016,0:11:32.840
And I didn't understand. He said, "You have a great style.

0:11:32.840,0:11:37.002
Celebrate your own style. Don't draw the way you're being told to draw.

0:11:37.002,0:11:39.160
Draw the way you're drawing and keep at it,

0:11:39.160,0:11:41.609
because you're really good."

0:11:41.609,0:11:45.183
Now when I was a teenager, I was angsty as any teenager was,

0:11:45.183,0:11:48.696
but after 17 years of having a mother

0:11:48.696,0:11:50.858
who was in and out of my life like a yo-yo

0:11:50.858,0:11:54.759
and a father who was faceless, I was angry.

0:11:54.759,0:11:57.481
And when I was 17, I met my father for the first time,

0:11:57.481,0:12:01.382
upon which I learned I had a brother and sister I had never known about.

0:12:01.382,0:12:03.302
And on the day I met my father for the first time,

0:12:03.302,0:12:06.066
I was rejected from the Rhode Island School of Design,

0:12:06.066,0:12:09.817
my one and only choice for college.

0:12:09.817,0:12:12.209
But it was around this time I went to Camp Sunshine

0:12:12.209,0:12:14.709
to volunteer a week and working with the most amazing kids,

0:12:14.709,0:12:17.781
kids with leukemia, and this kid Eric changed my life.

0:12:17.781,0:12:20.346
Eric didn't live to see his sixth birthday,

0:12:20.346,0:12:22.911
and Eric lives with me every day.

0:12:22.911,0:12:26.600
So after this experience, my art teacher, Mr. Shilale,

0:12:26.600,0:12:27.792
he brought in these picture books,

0:12:27.792,0:12:29.642
and I thought, "Picture books for kids!"

0:12:29.642,0:12:34.710
and I started writing books for young readers

0:12:34.710,0:12:36.439
when I was a senior in high school.

0:12:36.439,0:12:39.227
Well, I eventually got to the Rhode Island School of Design.

0:12:39.227,0:12:41.331
I transferred to RISD as a sophomore,

0:12:41.331,0:12:44.962
and it was there that I took every course that I could on writing,

0:12:44.962,0:12:48.995
and it was there that I wrote a story about a giant orange slug

0:12:48.995,0:12:50.647
who wanted to be friends with this kid.

0:12:50.647,0:12:52.156
The kid had no patience for him.

0:12:52.156,0:12:55.395
And I sent this book out to a dozen publishers

0:12:55.395,0:12:57.939
and it was rejected every single time,

0:12:57.939,0:13:00.692
but I was also involved with the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp,

0:13:00.692,0:13:03.677
an amazing camp for kids with all sorts of critical illnesses,

0:13:03.677,0:13:06.925
and it's those kids at the camp that read my stories,

0:13:06.925,0:13:10.692
and I read to them, and I saw that they responded to my work.

0:13:10.692,0:13:14.428
I graduated from RISD. My grandparents were very proud,

0:13:14.428,0:13:17.046
and I moved to Boston, and I set up shop.

0:13:17.046,0:13:19.221
I set up a studio and I tried to get published.

0:13:19.221,0:13:22.262
I would send out my books. I would send out hundreds of postcards

0:13:22.262,0:13:24.659
to editors and art directors,

0:13:24.659,0:13:26.299
but they would go unanswered.

0:13:26.299,0:13:28.154
And my grandfather would call me every week,

0:13:28.154,0:13:32.485
and he would say, "Jarrett, how's it going? Do you have a job yet?"

0:13:32.485,0:13:34.749
Because he had just invested a significant amount of money

0:13:34.749,0:13:36.670
in my college education.

0:13:36.670,0:13:40.525
And I said, "Yes, I have a job. I write and illustrate children's books."

0:13:40.525,0:13:44.043
And he said, "Well, who pays you for that?"

0:13:44.043,0:13:46.009
And I said, "No one, no one, no one just yet.

0:13:46.009,0:13:47.169
But I know it's going to happen."

0:13:47.169,0:13:50.662
Now, I used to work the weekends at the Hole in the Wall off-season programming

0:13:50.662,0:13:53.845
to make some extra money as I was trying to get my feet off the ground,

0:13:53.845,0:13:57.597
and this kid who was just this really hyper kid,

0:13:57.597,0:14:00.469
I started calling him "Monkey Boy,"

0:14:00.469,0:14:04.150
and I went home and wrote a book called "Good Night, Monkey Boy."

0:14:04.150,0:14:07.432
And I sent out one last batch of postcards.

0:14:07.432,0:14:10.806
And I received an email from an editor at Random House

0:14:10.806,0:14:14.557
with a subject line, "Nice work!" Exclamation point.

0:14:14.557,0:14:16.345
"Dear Jarrett, I received your postcard.

0:14:16.345,0:14:19.108
I liked your art, so I went to your website

0:14:19.108,0:14:23.069
and I'm wondering if you ever tried writing any of your own stories,

0:14:23.069,0:14:25.735
because I really like your art and it looks like there are some stories that go with them.

0:14:25.735,0:14:29.806
Please let me know if you're ever in New York City."

0:14:29.806,0:14:33.108
And this was from an editor at Random House Children's Books.

0:14:33.108,0:14:35.444
So the next week I "happened" to be in New York.

0:14:35.444,0:14:38.388
(Laughter)

0:14:38.388,0:14:40.700
And I met with this editor,

0:14:40.700,0:14:43.924
and I left New York for a contract for my first book,

0:14:43.924,0:14:44.957
"Good Night, Monkey Boy,"

0:14:44.957,0:14:48.419
which was published on June 12, 2001.

0:14:48.419,0:14:54.114
And my local paper celebrated the news.

0:14:54.114,0:14:58.379
The local bookstore made a big deal of it.

0:14:58.379,0:15:00.268
They sold out of all of their books.

0:15:00.268,0:15:04.045
My friend described it as a wake, but happy,

0:15:04.045,0:15:06.622
because everyone I ever knew was there in line to see me,

0:15:06.622,0:15:09.646
but I wasn't dead. I was just signing books.

0:15:09.646,0:15:11.193
My grandparents, they were in the middle of it.

0:15:11.193,0:15:13.782
They were so happy. They couldn't have been more proud.

0:15:13.782,0:15:17.534
Mrs. Alisch was there. Mr. Shilale was there. Mrs. Casey was there.

0:15:17.534,0:15:18.973
Mrs. Alisch cut in front of the line and said,

0:15:18.973,0:15:22.230
"I taught him how to read." (Laughter)

0:15:22.230,0:15:24.774
And then something happened that changed my life.

0:15:24.774,0:15:26.990
I got my first piece of significant fan mail,

0:15:26.990,0:15:30.265
where this kid loved Monkey Boy so much

0:15:30.265,0:15:33.861
that he wanted to have a Monkey Boy birthday cake.

0:15:33.861,0:15:38.248
For a two-year-old, that is like a tattoo. (Laughter)

0:15:38.248,0:15:41.309
You know? You only get one birthday per year.

0:15:41.309,0:15:44.154
And for him, it's only his second.

0:15:44.154,0:15:45.160
And I got this picture, and I thought,

0:15:45.160,0:15:47.202
"This picture is going to live within his consciousness

0:15:47.202,0:15:50.878
for his entire life. He will forever have this photo

0:15:50.878,0:15:53.834
in his family photo albums."

0:15:53.834,0:15:56.502
So that photo, since that moment,

0:15:56.502,0:15:59.549
is framed in front of me while I've worked on all of my books.

0:15:59.549,0:16:02.109
I have 10 picture books out.

0:16:02.109,0:16:05.509
"Punk Farm," "Baghead," "Ollie the Purple Elephant."

0:16:05.509,0:16:07.793
I just finished the ninth book

0:16:07.793,0:16:10.286
in the "Lunch Lady" series, which is a graphic novel series

0:16:10.286,0:16:12.870
about a lunch lady who fights crime.

0:16:12.870,0:16:15.686
I'm expecting the release of a chapter book

0:16:15.686,0:16:19.366
called "Platypus Police Squad: The Frog Who Croaked."

0:16:19.366,0:16:22.936
And I travel the country visiting countless schools,

0:16:22.936,0:16:27.446
letting lots of kids know that they draw great cats.

0:16:27.446,0:16:29.974
And I meet Bagheads.

0:16:29.974,0:16:34.545
Lunch ladies treat me really well.

0:16:34.545,0:16:39.069
And I got to see my name in lights

0:16:39.069,0:16:40.919
because kids put my name in lights.

0:16:40.919,0:16:43.009
Twice now, the "Lunch Lady" series has won

0:16:43.009,0:16:45.990
the Children's Choice Book of the Year in the third or fourth grade category,

0:16:45.990,0:16:47.960
and those winners were displayed

0:16:47.960,0:16:52.220
on a jumbotron screen in Times Square.

0:16:52.220,0:16:54.944
"Punk Farm" and "Lunch Lady" are in development to be movies,

0:16:54.944,0:16:57.518
so I am a movie producer

0:16:57.518,0:17:00.251
and I really do think, thanks to that video camera

0:17:00.251,0:17:02.815
I was given in ninth grade.

0:17:02.815,0:17:05.585
I've seen people have "Punk Farm" birthday parties,

0:17:05.585,0:17:08.472
people have dressed up as "Punk Farm" for Halloween,

0:17:08.472,0:17:10.101
a "Punk Farm" baby room,

0:17:10.101,0:17:14.916
which makes me a little nervous for the child's well-being in the long term.

0:17:14.916,0:17:17.387
And I get the most amazing fan mail,

0:17:17.387,0:17:19.795
and I get the most amazing projects,

0:17:19.795,0:17:23.147
and the biggest moment for me came last Halloween.

0:17:23.147,0:17:25.301
The doorbell rang and it was a trick-or-treater

0:17:25.301,0:17:29.458
dressed as my character. It was so cool.

0:17:29.458,0:17:32.572
Now my grandparents are no longer living,

0:17:32.572,0:17:35.636
so to honor them, I started a scholarship at the Worcester Art Museum

0:17:35.636,0:17:38.911
for kids who are in difficult situations

0:17:38.911,0:17:41.619
but whose caretakers can't afford the classes.

0:17:41.619,0:17:44.210
And it displayed the work from my first 10 years of publishing,

0:17:44.210,0:17:47.306
and you know who was there to celebrate? Mrs. Alisch.

0:17:47.306,0:17:48.993
I said, "Mrs. Alisch, how are you?"

0:17:48.993,0:17:52.099
And she responded with, "I'm here." (Laughter)

0:17:52.099,0:17:58.713
That's true. You are alive, and that's pretty good right now.

0:17:58.713,0:18:00.389
So the biggest moment for me, though,

0:18:00.389,0:18:02.375
my most important job now is I am a dad myself,

0:18:02.375,0:18:04.723
and I have two beautiful daughters,

0:18:04.723,0:18:07.514
and my goal is to surround them by inspiration,

0:18:07.514,0:18:10.636
by the books that are in every single room of our house

0:18:10.636,0:18:13.226
to the murals I painted in their rooms

0:18:13.226,0:18:16.865
to the moments for creativity where you find, in quiet times,

0:18:16.865,0:18:20.350
by making faces on the patio

0:18:20.350,0:18:22.674
to letting her sit in the very desk

0:18:22.674,0:18:25.362
that I've sat in for the past 20 years.

0:18:25.362,0:18:27.638
Thank you. (Applause)