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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,

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my imagination saved my life.

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When I was a kid, I loved to draw,

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and the most talented artist I knew

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was my mother,

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but my mother was addicted to heroin.

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And when your parent is a drug addict,

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it's kind of like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football,

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because as much as you want to love on that person,

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as much as you want to receive love from that person,

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every time you open your heart, you end up on your back.

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So throughout my childhood, my mother was incarcerated

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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,

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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

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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,

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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.

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An author visited our school, Jack Gantos.

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A published author of books came to talk to us

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about what he did for a living.

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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)

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We had to write our own Greek myth,

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our own creation story, so I wrote a story about an owl

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who challenged Hermes to a flying race,

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and the owl cheated,

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

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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,

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exactly what I do now for a living,

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and I sometimes let the words have the stage on their own,

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and sometimes I allowed the pictures to work on their own

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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,

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and that's what writing is.

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Writing is using your imagination on paper,

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and I do get so scared because I travel to so many schools now

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and that seems like such a foreign concept to kids,

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that writing would be using your imagination on paper,

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if they're allowed to even write now within the school hours.

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So I loved writing so much that I'd come home from school,

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and I would take out pieces of paper,

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and I would staple them together,

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and I would fill those blank pages with words and pictures

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just because I loved using my imagination.

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And so these characters would become my friends.

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There was an egg, a tomato, a head of lettuce and a pumpkin,

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and they all lived in this refrigerator city,

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and in one of their adventures they went to a haunted house

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that was filled with so many dangers

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like an evil blender who tried to chop them up,

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an evil toaster who tried to kidnap the bread couple,

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and an evil microwave who tried to melt their friend

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who was a stick of butter. (Laughter)

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And I'd make my own comics too,

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and this was another way for me to tell stories,

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through words and through pictures.

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Now when I was in sixth grade,

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the public funding all but eliminated the arts budgets

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in the Worcester public school system.

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I went from having art once a week

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to twice a month

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to once a month to not at all.

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And my grandfather, he was a wise man,

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and he saw that as a problem, because he knew

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that was, like, the one thing I had. I didn't play sports.

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I had art.

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So he walked into my room one evening,

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and he sat on the edge of my bed,

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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.

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So from sixth through 12th grade,

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once, twice, sometimes three times a week,

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I would take classes at the art museum,

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and I was surrounded by other kids who loved to draw,

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other kids who shared a similar passion.

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Now my publishing career began when I designed the cover

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for my eighth grade yearbook,

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

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I was really into Bell Biv DeVoe and MC Hammer

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and Vanilla Ice at the time. (Laughter)

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And to this day, I still can do karaoke to "Ice, Ice Baby"

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without looking at the screen.

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Don't tempt me, because I will do it.

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So I get shipped off to private school,

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K through eight, public schools, but for some reason

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my grandfather was upset that somebody

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at the local high school had been stabbed and killed,

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so he didn't want me to go there.

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He wanted me to go to a private school, and he gave me an option.

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You can go to Holy Name, which is coed,

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or St. John's, which is all boys.

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Very wise man, because he knew I would,

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I felt like I was making the decision on my own,

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and he knew I wouldn't choose St. John's,

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so I went to Holy Name High School,

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which was a tough transition because, like I said,

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I didn't play sports,

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and it was very focused on sports,

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but I took solace in Mr. Shilale's art room.

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And I just flourished here.

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I just couldn't wait to get to that classroom every day.

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So how did I make friends?

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I drew funny pictures of my teachers -- (Laughter) --

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and I passed them around.

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Well, in English class, in ninth grade,

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my friend John, who was sitting next to me,

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laughed a little bit too hard.

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Mr. Greenwood was not pleased.

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(Laughter)

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He instantly saw that I was the cause of the commotion,

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and for the first time in my life, I was sent to the hall,

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and I thought, "Oh no, I'm doomed.

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My grandfather's just going to kill me."

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And he came out to the hallway and he said,

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"Let me see the paper."

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And I thought, "Oh no. He thinks it's a note."

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And so I took this picture, and I handed it to him.

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And we sat in silence for that brief moment,

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and he said to me,

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"You're really talented." (Laughter)

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"You're really good. You know, the school newspaper

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needs a new cartoonist, and you should be the cartoonist.

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Just stop drawing in my class."

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So my parents never found out about it.

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I didn't get in trouble. I was introduced to Mrs. Casey,

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who ran the school newspaper,

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and I was for three and a half years

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the cartoonist for my school paper,

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handling such heavy issues as,

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seniors are mean,

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freshmen are nerds,

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the prom bill is so expensive. I can't believe how much it costs to go to the prom.

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And I took the headmaster to task

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and then I also wrote an ongoing story about a boy named Wesley

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who was unlucky in love, and I just swore up and down

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that this wasn't about me,

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but all these years later it was totally me.

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But it was so cool because I could write these stories,

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I could come up with these ideas,

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and they'd be published in the school paper,

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and people who I didn't know could read them.

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And I loved that thought, of being able to share my ideas

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through the printed page.

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On my 14th birthday, my grandfather and my grandmother

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gave me the best birthday present ever:

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a drafting table that I have worked on ever since.

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Here I am, 20 years later,

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and I still work on this table every day.

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On the evening of my 14th birthday,

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I was given this table, and we had Chinese food.

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And this was my fortune:

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"You will be successful in your work."

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I taped it to the top left hand of my table,

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and as you can see, it's still there.

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Now I never really asked my grandparents for anything.

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Well, two things: Rusty, who was a great hamster

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and lived a great long life when I was in fourth grade.

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(Laughter)

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And a video camera.

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I just wanted a video camera.

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And after begging and pleading for Christmas,

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I got a second-hand video camera,

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and I instantly started making my own animations

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on my own,

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and all throughout high school I made my own animations.

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I convinced my 10th grade English teacher to allow me

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to do my book report on Stephen King's "Misery"

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as an animated short. (Laughter)

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And I kept making comics.

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I kept making comics, and at the Worcester Art Museum,

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I was given the greatest piece of advice by any educator I was ever given.

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Mark Lynch, he's an amazing teacher

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and he's still a dear friend of mine,

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and I was 14 or 15,

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and I walked into his comic book class halfway through the course,

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and I was so excited, I was beaming.

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I had this book that was how to draw comics in the Marvel way,

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and it taught me how to draw superheroes,

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how to draw a woman, how to draw muscles

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just the way they were supposed to be

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if I were to ever draw for X-Men or Spiderman.

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And all the color just drained from his face,

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and he looked at me, and he said,

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"Forget everything you learned."

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And I didn't understand. He said, "You have a great style.

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Celebrate your own style. Don't draw the way you're being told to draw.

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Draw the way you're drawing and keep at it,

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because you're really good."

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Now when I was a teenager, I was angsty as any teenager was,

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but after 17 years of having a mother

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who was in and out of my life like a yo-yo

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and a father who was faceless, I was angry.

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And when I was 17, I met my father for the first time,

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upon which I learned I had a brother and sister I had never known about.

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And on the day I met my father for the first time,

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I was rejected from the Rhode Island School of Design,

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my one and only choice for college.

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But it was around this time I went to Camp Sunshine

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to volunteer a week and working with the most amazing kids,

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kids with leukemia, and this kid Eric changed my life.

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Eric didn't live to see his sixth birthday,

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and Eric lives with me every day.

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So after this experience, my art teacher, Mr. Shilale,

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he brought in these picture books,

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and I thought, "Picture books for kids!"

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and I started writing books for young readers

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when I was a senior in high school.

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Well, I eventually got to the Rhode Island School of Design.

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I transferred to RISD as a sophomore,

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and it was there that I took every course that I could on writing,

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and it was there that I wrote a story about a giant orange slug

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who wanted to be friends with this kid.

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The kid had no patience for him.

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And I sent this book out to a dozen publishers

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and it was rejected every single time,

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but I was also involved with the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp,

00:13:00.692 --> 00:13:03.677
an amazing camp for kids with all sorts of critical illnesses,

00:13:03.677 --> 00:13:06.925
and it's those kids at the camp that read my stories,

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and I read to them, and I saw that they responded to my work.

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I graduated from RISD. My grandparents were very proud,

00:13:14.428 --> 00:13:17.046
and I moved to Boston, and I set up shop.

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I set up a studio and I tried to get published.

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I would send out my books. I would send out hundreds of postcards

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to editors and art directors,

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but they would go unanswered.

00:13:26.299 --> 00:13:28.154
And my grandfather would call me every week,

00:13:28.154 --> 00:13:32.485
and he would say, "Jarrett, how's it going? Do you have a job yet?"

00:13:32.485 --> 00:13:34.749
Because he had just invested a significant amount of money

00:13:34.749 --> 00:13:36.670
in my college education.

00:13:36.670 --> 00:13:40.525
And I said, "Yes, I have a job. I write and illustrate children's books."

00:13:40.525 --> 00:13:44.043
And he said, "Well, who pays you for that?"

00:13:44.043 --> 00:13:46.009
And I said, "No one, no one, no one just yet.

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But I know it's going to happen."

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Now, I used to work the weekends at the Hole in the Wall off-season programming

00:13:50.662 --> 00:13:53.845
to make some extra money as I was trying to get my feet off the ground,

00:13:53.845 --> 00:13:57.597
and this kid who was just this really hyper kid,

00:13:57.597 --> 00:14:00.469
I started calling him "Monkey Boy,"

00:14:00.469 --> 00:14:04.150
and I went home and wrote a book called "Good Night, Monkey Boy."

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And I sent out one last batch of postcards.

00:14:07.432 --> 00:14:10.806
And I received an email from an editor at Random House

00:14:10.806 --> 00:14:14.557
with a subject line, "Nice work!" Exclamation point.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:14.557 --> 00:14:16.345
"Dear Jarrett, I received your postcard.

00:14:16.345 --> 00:14:19.108
I liked your art, so I went to your website

00:14:19.108 --> 00:14:23.069
and I'm wondering if you ever tried writing any of your own stories,

00:14:23.069 --> 00:14:25.735
because I really like your art and it looks like there are some stories that go with them.

00:14:25.735 --> 00:14:29.806
Please let me know if you're ever in New York City."

00:14:29.806 --> 00:14:33.108
And this was from an editor at Random House Children's Books.

NOTE Paragraph

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So the next week I "happened" to be in New York.

00:14:35.444 --> 00:14:38.388
(Laughter)

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And I met with this editor,

00:14:40.700 --> 00:14:43.924
and I left New York for a contract for my first book,

00:14:43.924 --> 00:14:44.957
"Good Night, Monkey Boy,"

00:14:44.957 --> 00:14:48.419
which was published on June 12, 2001.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:48.419 --> 00:14:54.114
And my local paper celebrated the news.

00:14:54.114 --> 00:14:58.379
The local bookstore made a big deal of it.

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They sold out of all of their books.

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My friend described it as a wake, but happy,

00:15:04.045 --> 00:15:06.622
because everyone I ever knew was there in line to see me,

00:15:06.622 --> 00:15:09.646
but I wasn't dead. I was just signing books.

00:15:09.646 --> 00:15:11.193
My grandparents, they were in the middle of it.

00:15:11.193 --> 00:15:13.782
They were so happy. They couldn't have been more proud.

00:15:13.782 --> 00:15:17.534
Mrs. Alisch was there. Mr. Shilale was there. Mrs. Casey was there.

00:15:17.534 --> 00:15:18.973
Mrs. Alisch cut in front of the line and said,

00:15:18.973 --> 00:15:22.230
"I taught him how to read." (Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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And then something happened that changed my life.

00:15:24.774 --> 00:15:26.990
I got my first piece of significant fan mail,

00:15:26.990 --> 00:15:30.265
where this kid loved Monkey Boy so much

00:15:30.265 --> 00:15:33.861
that he wanted to have a Monkey Boy birthday cake.

00:15:33.861 --> 00:15:38.248
For a two-year-old, that is like a tattoo. (Laughter)

00:15:38.248 --> 00:15:41.309
You know? You only get one birthday per year.

00:15:41.309 --> 00:15:44.154
And for him, it's only his second.

00:15:44.154 --> 00:15:45.160
And I got this picture, and I thought,

00:15:45.160 --> 00:15:47.202
"This picture is going to live within his consciousness

00:15:47.202 --> 00:15:50.878
for his entire life. He will forever have this photo

00:15:50.878 --> 00:15:53.834
in his family photo albums."

NOTE Paragraph

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So that photo, since that moment,

00:15:56.502 --> 00:15:59.549
is framed in front of me while I've worked on all of my books.

NOTE Paragraph

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I have 10 picture books out.

00:16:02.109 --> 00:16:05.509
"Punk Farm," "Baghead," "Ollie the Purple Elephant."

00:16:05.509 --> 00:16:07.793
I just finished the ninth book

00:16:07.793 --> 00:16:10.286
in the "Lunch Lady" series, which is a graphic novel series

00:16:10.286 --> 00:16:12.870
about a lunch lady who fights crime.

00:16:12.870 --> 00:16:15.686
I'm expecting the release of a chapter book

00:16:15.686 --> 00:16:19.366
called "Platypus Police Squad: The Frog Who Croaked."

00:16:19.366 --> 00:16:22.936
And I travel the country visiting countless schools,

00:16:22.936 --> 00:16:27.446
letting lots of kids know that they draw great cats.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:27.446 --> 00:16:29.974
And I meet Bagheads.

00:16:29.974 --> 00:16:34.545
Lunch ladies treat me really well.

00:16:34.545 --> 00:16:39.069
And I got to see my name in lights

00:16:39.069 --> 00:16:40.919
because kids put my name in lights.

00:16:40.919 --> 00:16:43.009
Twice now, the "Lunch Lady" series has won

00:16:43.009 --> 00:16:45.990
the Children's Choice Book of the Year in the third or fourth grade category,

00:16:45.990 --> 00:16:47.960
and those winners were displayed

00:16:47.960 --> 00:16:52.220
on a jumbotron screen in Times Square.

00:16:52.220 --> 00:16:54.944
"Punk Farm" and "Lunch Lady" are in development to be movies,

00:16:54.944 --> 00:16:57.518
so I am a movie producer

00:16:57.518 --> 00:17:00.251
and I really do think, thanks to that video camera

00:17:00.251 --> 00:17:02.815
I was given in ninth grade.

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I've seen people have "Punk Farm" birthday parties,

00:17:05.585 --> 00:17:08.472
people have dressed up as "Punk Farm" for Halloween,

00:17:08.472 --> 00:17:10.101
a "Punk Farm" baby room,

00:17:10.101 --> 00:17:14.916
which makes me a little nervous for the child's well-being in the long term.

NOTE Paragraph

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And I get the most amazing fan mail,

00:17:17.387 --> 00:17:19.795
and I get the most amazing projects,

00:17:19.795 --> 00:17:23.147
and the biggest moment for me came last Halloween.

00:17:23.147 --> 00:17:25.301
The doorbell rang and it was a trick-or-treater

00:17:25.301 --> 00:17:29.458
dressed as my character. It was so cool.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now my grandparents are no longer living,

00:17:32.572 --> 00:17:35.636
so to honor them, I started a scholarship at the Worcester Art Museum

00:17:35.636 --> 00:17:38.911
for kids who are in difficult situations

00:17:38.911 --> 00:17:41.619
but whose caretakers can't afford the classes.

00:17:41.619 --> 00:17:44.210
And it displayed the work from my first 10 years of publishing,

00:17:44.210 --> 00:17:47.306
and you know who was there to celebrate? Mrs. Alisch.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:47.306 --> 00:17:48.993
I said, "Mrs. Alisch, how are you?"

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:48.993 --> 00:17:52.099
And she responded with, "I'm here." (Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:52.099 --> 00:17:58.713
That's true. You are alive, and that's pretty good right now.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:58.713 --> 00:18:00.389
So the biggest moment for me, though,

00:18:00.389 --> 00:18:02.375
my most important job now is I am a dad myself,

00:18:02.375 --> 00:18:04.723
and I have two beautiful daughters,

00:18:04.723 --> 00:18:07.514
and my goal is to surround them by inspiration,

00:18:07.514 --> 00:18:10.636
by the books that are in every single room of our house

00:18:10.636 --> 00:18:13.226
to the murals I painted in their rooms

00:18:13.226 --> 00:18:16.865
to the moments for creativity where you find, in quiet times,

00:18:16.865 --> 00:18:20.350
by making faces on the patio

00:18:20.350 --> 00:18:22.674
to letting her sit in the very desk

00:18:22.674 --> 00:18:25.362
that I've sat in for the past 20 years.

00:18:25.362 --> 00:18:27.638
Thank you. (Applause)