Jack Gantos
best known for his Joey Pigza trilogy -- a series of books about a young
man with ADHD -- although the books never actually give a name to Joey's
condition. The first book in the trilogy, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key was
a National Book Award Finalist. The second book, Joey Pigza Loses
Control was a Newbery Honor winner. The third book of the trilogy, What
Would Joey Do? was recently released to positive reviews.
Mr. Gantos is also the author of Jack on the Tracks and three other Jack
books which are semi-autobiographical story collections and the very
popular Rotten Ralph books. He also recently wrote Hole in My Life, a
terrific memoir, for young adults.
Check out Jack Gantos' Website for more information on this great
author.
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(used with permission)
Mount Pleasant,
Pennsylvania. He remembers
playing a lot of "pass the
chalk" in Mrs. Neiderheizer's
class in first grade. He was in
the Bluebird reading group,
which he later found out was
for the slow readers. To this
day he'd rather be called a
Bluebird than a slow reader.
His favorite game at that time
was playing his clothes were
on fire and rolling down a hill
to save himself.
schools, where there was muchon reading and writing. Students were
friendly but fiercely competitive, and the teachers made learning a lot of
fun. By fifth grade he had managed to learn 90 percent of what he knows
to this very day.
When the family moved to south Florida, he found his new classmates
uninterested in their studies, and his teachers spent most of their time
disciplining students. Jack retreated to an abandoned bookmobile (three
flat tires and empty of books) parked out behind the sandy ball field, and
read for most of the day. His greatest wish in life is to replace trailer parks
with bookmobile parks, which he thinks will eliminate most of the targets for
tornadoes and educate an entire generation of great kids who now go to
schools that are underfunded and substandard.
The seeds for Jack's writing career were planted in sixth grade, when he
read his sister's diary and decided he could write better than she could. He
begged his mother for a diary and began to collect anecdotes he
overheard at school, mostly from standing outside the teachers' lounge
and listening to their lunchtime conversations. Later, he incorporated many
of these anecdotes into stories.
In junior high he went to a school that had been converted from a former
state prison. He thinks the inmates probably fled for their lives once the
students showed up. Again, he spent most of his time reading on his own.
In high school he decided to become a writer. But he would have to wait
another three years, until he went to college, before he could actually meet
other writers and study with teachers who thought writing amounted to
more than just cribbing book reports and composing sympathy notes.
While in college, he and an illustrator friend, Nicole Rubel, began working
on picture books. After a series of well-deserved rejections, they published
their first book, Rotten Ralph, in 1976. It was a success and the beginning
of Jack's career as a professional writer. This surprised a great many
people who thought he was going to specialize in rehabilitating old
bookmobiles into housing for retired librarians.
Jack continued to write children's books and began to teach courses in
children's book writing and children's literature. He developed the master's
degree program in children's book writing at Emerson College and the
Vermont College M.F.A. program for children's book writers. He now
devotes his time to writing books and educational speaking.
His publications can take a reader from "cradle to grave" -- from picture
books and middle-grade fiction to novels for young adults and adults.
Mr. Gantos is known nationally for his educational creative writing and
literature presentations to students and teachers. He is a frequent
conference speaker, university lecturer, and in-service provider.