About this episode
Growing up, Jerry Craft did not enjoy reading. He says he simply never encountered a children's book that intrigued him enough or felt right. But Jerry loves defying expectations, and so naturally, the boy who rarely set foot in a library grew up to become a celebrated children’s book author and illustrator. He has made defying expectations—and breaking stereotypes—a guiding principle in his storytelling.
“Their white classmates can read Harry Potter and relate to going to Hogwarts and flying on brooms. But a Black kid can't aspire to go to Paris, which can actually happen.” – Jerry Craft
Jerry Craft is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, best known for “New Kid,” the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal. “New Kid,” along with the subsequent books in the three-part series—“Class Act” and “School Trip”—were groundbreaking for middle-grade literature, especially the power of graphic novels. While many of us may know and love Jerry’s more recent graphic novels, his road to those books was winding and unexpected.
In this episode, Jerry tells us about the one teacher who finally found the secret to inspiring him, explains how being a Black comic strip creator was a lot like the movie Highlander, and ponders whether his dad’s night shifts might be the reason he still works best at 3 AM.
Settle in for an episode filled with wry humor and the colorful stories of Jerry Craft’s journey to becoming a beloved author for students and teachers alike!
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Jerry curated a group of graphic novels for his reading challenge, How It Started, How It’s Going. These graphic novels chronicle his own journey as a creator—from the books that inspired him to those that helped forge his path and finally to those for which he laid the groundwork. Learn more and download Jerry’s reading challenge below.
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This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Laurie Schalliol, media specialist at Heritage Intermediate School in Middlebury, Indiana. Laurie dishes about a spicy incentive that pushed her students’ reading to the next level.
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Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
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Listen to the full episode, "In The Heights: Jerry Craft Subverts Expectations," on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Like what you hear? Please leave a 5-star review, subscribe, and share with someone who will enjoy it!
Whatever you do, keep reading!
Contents
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Chapter 1 - Oh Snap
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Chapter 2 - Stay Humble
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Chapter 3 - Xylem Strips
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Chapter 4 - To One Person
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Chapter 5 - The Highlander
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Chapter 6 - That’s Not For You
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Chapter 7 - Reading Challenge
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Chapter 8 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Author Reading Challenge
Download the free reading challenge worksheet, or view the challenge materials on our helpdesk.
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Links:
View Transcript
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Jerry Craft: That's what they tell the black kids, but their white classmates can read Harry Potter and relate to going to Hogwarts and flying on brooms and kept bells, but a black kid can't aspire to go to Paris can actually happen more than anyone else can fly on the brook.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: There's a snarky t shirt you might have seen that reads, stereotypes are a real time saver. And, hey, sometimes that's true. I mean, if both your parents were famous jazz players, and they sent you to twelve years of music school, and your nickname is Saxxy Maxxy, well, I expect I might guess what you do for a living. But then there are people who take those expectations and make them look outright pointless.
Jerry Craft: I just tried to go against all of those tropes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Our guest today is an expectation buster. He didn't grow up in a family of writers or even readers. He wasn't a lonely library lover or a junior journaler. And sit down for this one. He can't remember ever liking a single kid's book ever.
What he was motivated to do was to draw and eventually to create the kind of kids books that he never encountered when he was young.
Jerry Craft: The books I like have just kids of color as regular kids and aspire to be them, and I think that's more world changing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jerry Craft is a New York Times best selling author and illustrator, best known for New Kid, the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal. In this episode, Jerry tells us about the one teacher who found the secret to inspiring him, explains how being a black comic strip artist was a lot like the movie Highlander, and ponders whether his dad's night shifts might be the reason he still works best at 3AM. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with diverse authors about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive deep into their personal experiences and inspirations. Our show is made possible by Beanstack, the leading solution for motivating students to read more.
Learn more at beanstack.com. And make sure to check us out on Instagram at the reading culture pod and subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content at thereadingculturepod.com forward / newsletter. Alright. On to the show. Hey, listeners.
Are you looking for a fun, easy way to track your reading and earn cool rewards? Well, meet Beanstack, the ultimate reading app used by a community of over 15,000 schools, libraries, and organizations nationwide. Are you an avid reader? Check with your local library to see if they offer Beanstack for free. A parent?
Ask your child's teacher if the school library already uses Beanstack. And if you are an educator searching for a fresh alternative to Accelerated Reader, Beanstack is the perfect tool to cultivate a thriving reading culture. Ready to turn the page? Visit beanstack.com to learn more. I'm gonna start go back in time a little bit to your, like, early life.
So you grew up did you grow up your whole, like, childhood in your from Washington Heights? That's where you're born and raised?
Jerry Craft: Yeah. So the actual house where Jordan Banks lives is the house where I grew up.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Side note, Jordan Banks is the main character in Jerry's New Kid series.
Jerry Craft: So I drew it's a brownstone.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And so his room is basically my room.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Uh-huh.
Jerry Craft: It was a really interesting area in Washington Heights because there was a cobblestone street. Mhmm. And right across the street was something called Morris Duhamel Mansion, which is like a historical landmark. And they had these cannons in front and, like, George Washington used as a headquarters during the war. You know?
Like, that's the law. And then now it's supposed to be haunted. So there used to be tour buses that came all the time.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So interesting. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. And me and my friends used to be out playing softball and football on the lawn at front.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And then the tour buses would come. And one day I looked up and, you know, there's a group of people and it was Queen Elizabeth. And we went over and said hi, and, you know, it was like, okay. But, you know, that's that's the kind of, neighborhood I was in.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: When he wasn't welcoming foreign monarchs, Jerry was busy honing a different set of social skills.
Jerry Craft: My friends around my block, I mean, we were like the little rascals.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: You know? So there were, like, 12 to 15 of us.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's the best.
Jerry Craft: And, I mean, it was the best. Mhmm. You know, of every morning in the summer, we start off ride our bikes or go to the basketball court, and then everyone's up. Then you play the stickball game, and then you go and you do this, and then softball, then skateboards, and then play touch football until the street lights come on or eight, 09:00 at night, and then hot peas and butter. And and then, you know, you you just roast each other.
Yeah. That was it. So I was always one of the smallest of a lot of my friends. Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So Like Jordan.
Jerry Craft: My tongue got to be very sharp.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's right. You gotta make yourself dig in some other ways. Right. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: We used to call it not roasting, but snapping on each other. So I kinda honed the blacksmith with the the sword, you know. And I'm like, you you wanna go toe to toe, I'm good. Like, even sometime I go to high school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And the kids do something, I'm like, alright. You know, I'm leaving here. You know, after you say your part, I'm a leave here. You're the one that's gonna have to see your friends tomorrow after I say back to you now. You wanna go there?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Out under the streetlights with his crew of friends, Jerry was a big voice with quick wit and a sharp sense of humor. But inside his home, he led a much quieter life, guided by a parent who had grown up in a time when being outspoken wasn't often a safe option for a black man.
Jerry Craft: So my dad was born in 1918. So for an African American man to have lived through a lot that he lived through.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Sorry to interrupt. But where was he born?
Jerry Craft: He was born in New York in Astoria, Queens.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: In 1918.
Jerry Craft: Mhmm. And so, you know, he lived through colored drinking fountains and, you know, just everything that is TV to most people.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: So he didn't expect a lot. So even when I went to a school like Jordan, I ended up going to a field school in Riverdale, but I don't remember him ever coming to parents day. You know, there was kind of a I don't know if he felt intimidated, but, yeah, probably so. You know, because you go there and there are kids getting picked up in limos and cars with diplomatic license plates and, things like that. So there were things that are everyday for you and I that were just like, can we go to that restaurant?
Can we do this? Can we do that? You know? So there was a a humbleness to him. My dad worked nights, so I would wake him up every night at 10PM.
And he would get dressed and catch the subway and then work midnight till eight at the post office, the big post office downtown Manhattan. Mhmm. And he did that my entire young life.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: He always had that night shift, that graveyard shift?
Jerry Craft: Uh-huh.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Did he want that so he could then be with you, like, during the other hours? Is that the idea, or is it just like the those are just the hours of his job?
Jerry Craft: I think initially so that he would be home
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: When I got home from school. But then once I was older, he still kept that until he retired.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: So I would come home from school at, like, 05:00 because I was in the after school program. Mhmm. And we'd have dinner and hang out a little bit, then he'd have to go back to sleep, and then it started again. So I always like to draw. So I am was always kind of a night owl.
So after he would leave, I would start drawing and make my own comic books and, you know, that never changed. I finished drawing at 5AM this morning. I did an all nighter. Wow. And then got a couple hours sleep and here
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I am. Sort of like your dad. Mhmm. Just drawing keeping those hours.
Jerry Craft: Yep. I'm
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: gonna get to drawing in a second. But then, and then your mom was the three of you pretty much when it was besides your other two siblings.
Jerry Craft: Yep. And then they divorced when I was 17.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, interesting.
Jerry Craft: So then it was just me and my dad for about eight years or so, just the two of us. So I was always used to being able to entertain myself by drawing or watching TV or Yeah. You know, whatever. You know? So I know some people panic at the thought of being by themselves because they get bored so easily.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And even now being in my studio is just like a sanctuary. Like, my fortress of solitude. I get work done and my wife and I, I'll stop a couple of times during the day and we'll go and we'll do some stuff. But for the most part, like, I'm I'm good. And it's so weird to go from being alone for so much of the day and then going to ALA where there's, like, 3,000,000 screaming librarians, you know, all all wanting to take selfies and stuff.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I wanna share here that I first met Jerry at one of those conferences where despite his fame and all those screaming fans, he immediately did something that showed how humble and kind he really is. I just said, oh, hey. Jerry turned around like it's Jerry Craft. I think, you know, you're Jerry Craft. And you were like, yeah.
So my kids love your work. You said, oh, great. What are their names? Then you just took out a little I didn't ask. You just took out these two little sheets of paper and put there and made them each a little drawing, which we have it hanging up now.
Jerry Craft: Right. Because it's like, you know, how long did that take out of my life?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.
Jerry Craft: You know, like like, what could I have done that would have been better? Mhmm. You know what I mean? Yeah. In in that, like, five minutes that we engage and for me to sign an autograph to your kids, you know, how could I have used that time better?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.
Jerry Craft: You know? And then you go home, and you take it to your kids. Like, oh, mom. And you get your mom cool points.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Yeah. My cool points. Were you always drawing? Like, it sounds like you were always drawing.
Do you kind of remember, like, discovering, I'm good at this. I enjoy this. Or, like, who gave you your first crayons or that kind of thing?
Jerry Craft: You know, the Sunday funnies were a big thing back then, and then I inherited my brother and sister's Marvel comic collection. So between the Sunday funnies and the Marvel comics, that kinda got me into writing and drawing. And I remember when my brother went to the marines, if I went to see a movie, I would then draw the movie out in comic strip form and mail it to him.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, really? That's so cool. Do you remember which ones some of the ones you did it for?
Jerry Craft: Yeah. You know, I mean, that was back in, like, the Shaft days. Richard Roundtree and Shaft and then Bruce Lee, like, Fist of Fury and Into the Dragon, like, those kind of days. And those
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So you would actually, like, do all the panels for sending him and then send him the movie your movie rendition of it?
Jerry Craft: Uh-huh. And then I remember in Feelson, my, I think, ninth grade biology teacher, Barbara Silver, let me do my term paper as a comic book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Wow.
Jerry Craft: And it was about the life of a plant. And towards the end, it was winter coming and frost, like in these spaceships shooting the like ice rays. And
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. They had to
Jerry Craft: build energy using photosynthesis and moving stuff up with the xylem and phloem systems and all this stuff. Then I still remember because I worked so much harder on that than I would have if it was just a regular paper that I had to type up. You know? So I definitely encourage teachers if you've got that kid that does something that's a little off the beaten path. Mhmm.
If you can find a way to bring a lesson plan where they can use that kind of thing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. It's cool that she did that because it's I think, like, nowadays, I do think it's maybe more common for people understand the pedagogy of, like, trying to understand how a kid can best communicate that information and give them the tools. And a good scenario with someone who has the tools to be able to do that. You know? Yeah.
But I think you know, when you're in school, like, that was just couldn't have been common to allow somebody to do that. You know?
Jerry Craft: And I think it was maybe Kevin Hart's teacher that told him if he behaved for the entire week, Friday before they went home, he could do comedy in front of the class.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I don't know that story really.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. So those kind of things really make a difference on a kid. And that's the thing. You never know what impacts a kid. Mhmm.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You
Jerry Craft: know? Did she know that fifty years later, I'd be telling the story of how much I remembered it?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. It's wild to think about after all this time, that that experience still stands out so clear for you. Yeah. And I bet I bet she does not know the outsized impact that it had on you. And so you're obviously known as a drawer, as an artist for everybody.
But I'm curious, and I have read that you did not like to read a lot growing up.
Jerry Craft: One book in elementary school, and that was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I remember he was a Seagull. I don't remember anything else. I don't remember literally reading any of and and it's not like I wouldn't have read it because, you know, I was like a honor roll student. Mhmm.
But there's nothing that just that comes to mind. Like, I have no memory. Mhmm. You know? And even writing wise, I remember in Feelson in high school, I read Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, wow.
Jerry Craft: And I had to write a paper on it. And for some reason, I really got it clicked, and I really understood it. And I wrote a really good paper on it. And I remember my English teacher calling me into his classroom. And, hey.
You know? What does your mom do for a living? And what does your dad do? And interviewing just like this. And, you know, he gave me my paper, and it was an a.
And it was probably years later that I was like, you know what? He didn't think I wrote that. He thought, like, my mom or dad wrote that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Wow.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. And I'm like, I'd like to find one day and show my Newbery Medal and pick pick my tongue out at them.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: There was eventually one book that Jerry felt some connection with, and it was probably not a title you'd guess that a, quote, reluctant reader would gravitate toward. For starters, it was more than a century old and set in Georgian England, and yet its themes of limited class mobility and the weight of inherited status rang true to a young man from Washington Heights who was attending a much wealthier neighboring school. Did you guess it yet?
Jerry Craft: So Great Expectations, that was the first book of any substance or any length. It's a long book, though. It's like a 300 page book. And I read it and finished it and enjoyed it, and I was stunned because that was the first I didn't think I could ever read a 300 page book. You
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: know? Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: I remember we had to read American Tragedy, which is, like, 800 pages. And me and one of my friends in the class came up with a plan. They're like, look. I'll read the first four hundred pages and read the second four hundred, and we're comparing those. And neither of us did.
Who would have thought that that plan would have worked out?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Sounds like a very good, high school void plan.
Jerry Craft: Right. But it's like, you know, you can't give some kids 800 page books. I mean, now, you know, their kids are like, oh, I read Harry Potter when I was five. It was 1,500 pages. It's like, oh, okay.
Well, good video.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Whatever. Yeah. I know.
Jerry Craft: No. But that's amazing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: But for some kids, like me, when you see that many words, it just looks like gray paper. Mhmm. You know, so many words, it it just grays out. You know? Mhmm.
At least it was about a kid. That's the one thing. Even though he was a kid from England named Pip, he was about my age or whatever. So at least he was a kid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And I always say that people had expectations for him. And as a young African American kid, we didn't even expect to live to the end of the book. You know what I mean? Much less climb social hierarchies and socioeconomic and go to all the class systems. It's like, it was nothing like that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Especially like what you were saying about your I think your dad and also having that, like, the inheritance of that where you said his humility and his sort of, like he literally for himself and maybe for you, I don't know about for you, but for himself did not have those own expectations. It was like
Jerry Craft: Oh, yeah. You know, I was, like, first college graduate in the family, first to own a house, first to, you know, those kind of things. So, yeah, it it was just very different.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This is usually the part where guests read a passage, something that shaped them or stuck with them. And I thought Jerry's might be something from Dickens, but he told me he'd prefer to share a quote that he keeps pinned to his wall, a reminder to himself to never underestimate the effect we can have on others.
Jerry Craft: So I'm not really one of these that puts up these sayings or whatever, but I I did see this, and this is actually hanging up. It says, to the world, you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world. When I saw it, the light shines down and the angels start playing the harp, you know, and all that stuff. And as I have seen that and different stories that teachers and librarians have shared with me over the years of, you know, they're coming to me and they've already got tears in their eyes. I'm like, okay.
What's going on? Like, there's a kid in my class, and he has never read a book before. And he read New Kid, and he read it, like, three times. And then he asked me if he could start a book club. I'm like, really?
And they're just bawling. And now I'm about to go up on stage. I'm bawling. I'm like or a teacher who says that, again, a kid who never read came to him and was like, miss Stuarten, can you promise me you'll read this over the weekend so we could talk about it on Monday? And she's like, you're giving me reading homework?
You know? And the fact that this kid could sit down with his teacher and read a Newbery award winning book. And not only that, but sometimes adults, if you didn't grow up reading comics, it's not second nature.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: No. It's not. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: You know, I read I grew up reading comics. It's easy. But there are adults that are like, okay. Do you look at the pictures first?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's, like, pretty sophisticated actually to read. Right. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: But for kids, it's second nature, a lot of them. And so now this kid sitting down again with a award winning book, having to show his teacher how to read that, you know, and enjoying it together and discussing it is like like me doing my biology term paper as a comic book. Like, you just never know the impact that it had on that kid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: To come back to the quote. Like, you just don't realize that that
Jerry Craft: Right. That it could be life altering.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Do you have in mind when you sit down to create a new story? Like, are you consciously imagining how a kid might be inspired by that book?
Jerry Craft: The books I like have just kids of color is regular kids. Yeah. You know, so when you see Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez, or the King of Kindergarten, the Queen of Kindergarten, you know, by Derek Barr, or Big by Varsley Harrison. Yeah. Like those are books that I'm like, any kid can relate to them Yeah.
And aspire to be them. And I think that's more world changing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jerry's path to making those world changing books as an illustrator and author wasn't a straight shot. It was more twists, turns, and bumps than smooth road. Along the way, he began crafting a family comic strip he called Mama's Boys. And eventually, he found a spot working at a comic syndicate, King Features, but also found himself frustrated by the expectations that newspapers and publishers had for a, quote, black comic strip.
Jerry Craft: Each syndicate had one black comic strip. So, like, King Features had Curtis by Ray Billingsley. And then, I think Tribune had Maury Turner's We Pals. LA Times had, like, Herman Jamal by Stephen Bentley. Detroit Free Press had Barbara Brand is where I'm coming from.
So each syndicate had Had one. One it was like Highlander. There could be only one. And you either had to wait for someone to retire or you had to wait for someone to leave the business or hope that you add of their leaves or whatever. You know, they can have 15 talking cat strips.
They can have Garfield and Heathcliff or Yeah. A lot
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: of, like, middle aged mom types. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: Right. But there was one black comic strip. So then news comes in that Universal has picked up Boondocks. And I'm like, well, it was a good run. You know, like, that's it.
Like, I'm never going to get or it's gonna take years before I get another shot at that. So that's when I started to self publish. And 1997, I self published my very first book, Mama's Boys as American Sweet Potato Pie, which is a collection of my comic strips, of my Mama's Boys comic strips.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's boys with a z or a zed for my Canadian listeners, a tribute to one of his favorite films, John Singleton's Boys in the Hood. But Jerry's young characters were far from South Central LA in that gritty nineties film.
Jerry Craft: And it was like, you know, I just wanted to do family humor. You know, good kids, you know, respectful. You know, the mom owned a bookstore.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jerry frequently found that respectful and family friendly weren't what editors were looking for in a comic about a black household.
Jerry Craft: They're always like, hey. You know, you're doing a a black strip. Can you curse? Can you do this? Can and I'm like, no.
I don't I don't wanna do that. And then it ends up that, Stan Mack actually did a real life funny on me with them. People want me to curse in my strips with I just wanna do a family thing. In 1997, I wanted to do a book and sent that out to different publishers and got horrible rejection letters. Again, one of them had an another, dear Jerry.
And I was like, it's not a form letter. It's per someone took the time to read me this letter. Yeah. It's gotta be good. And it was like, you know, this whole black sitcom style works on TV, but it doesn't work in the book.
So to think that this will ever get published, you're kinda wasting your time.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, man.
Jerry Craft: I'm like, shoot. That was mean.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Like the high school writing teacher who doubted that Chekhov essay, the publishing world in the nineties had a lot of preconceptions about what Jerry's work was supposed to look like. Pushing back against those cliches became one of his deliberate goals, a principle that continues to guide his creative process today.
Jerry Craft: So when I did, Jordan's dad, I wanted to have a real hands on dad. Yeah. You know, I didn't want the dad because the other trope in the movies is
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Absent dad. You know? Right.
Jerry Craft: Or or even if he's there, he's not really there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Or he's like a drag he's like literally a physical drag on, you know, or like a neg a negative force.
Jerry Craft: So I don't wanna have Jordan playing baseball, and it's the championship, and it's high school team. And he looks up, and there's one empty chair. Yeah. And that's because dad is working late. Yeah.
He's trying to make partner. And then he gets there as the kids are getting on the bus. And I'm like so I I just tried to go against all of those tropes. Even, you know, the dad is my complexion and the mom is darker skinned.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: We never see that. It's always the darker skinned dad.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's always a reverse. That's right. And one thing I love about your books, even at the very end, like, there are some people who just suck, and they still just suck at the end. You know what I mean? And it's just real.
Like and there's not like a it's a nice bow on what you know, you have the three years of middle school experience, but there are just some people that just they they just go on being who they are.
Jerry Craft: And and I have to thank my original editor, Angela Leopoldis, for that because when I had the Andy character, I would have tried to explain him, you know, if he hurt people, hurt people. And so I was gonna have this whole big thing. And he basically said, like, you're like, some people just suck.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: While continuing to subvert expectations as a writer, Jerry was also determined to enlarge the range of what African American audiences were offered as readers. He knew firsthand that children's books and media with black characters were often limited to history and biography, creating the confining feeling that somehow all black stories had to be anchored in the suffering of slavery or the struggle for civil rights and justice.
Jerry Craft: Kids have so much on their day to day, you know, on their plate. So many of the movies and books that I had to see as a kid, especially with African American characters
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, yeah.
Jerry Craft: You know, there was an hour and forty minutes of trauma, and then, you know, it ends, you know, in the last ten minutes. It's like, hey. You're free now. Oh, hey. Aren't you happy?
And I'm like, you know, I just watched, Life with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, which I still love the movie. And I'm like, is that a happy ending? I mean, I guess it's happier than them not? Yeah. But that's one of the happier of the movies with African American characters.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: You know? Because they're always in jail for something that they didn't commit. Yeah. And then and and I always say and I don't even say to you, to give you an idea of what it's like with that trauma as your entertainment, if the only books that you had as a 13 year old girl were like Handmaid's Tale.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.
Jerry Craft: You know what I mean? Not that it's not a great book, not that it's not well written, not that it's not whatever. Yeah. But one after the other, you know, you go from Cinderella as a kid and then Handmaid's Tale, and you go to 13 Reasons Why. That kinda messes you up.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It sure does.
Jerry Craft: There is, a sense of trauma amongst African American readers that I don't even think that we're conscious of. I remember one woman, and these are, you know, grown women in their forties or fifties. She got school trip, and she said she read the first two chapters and really liked it. And then she hadn't read the first two books, New Kid, The Class Act. And then she immediately goes and reads the last chapter to make sure that all the kids are still alive.
Oh. And, you know, like, so many books on slavery and civil rights and police brutality. And like I said, even if the ending, you know, like the last three chapters is like, hey. You know?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Everybody's okay. They have hope.
Jerry Craft: It's okay. But, you know, for those first twenty seven chapters
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You've been through it.
Jerry Craft: Have the weight of the world on your back.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Against that backdrop, Mama's Boys, New Kid, and its sequels are part of a wider movement to boost the availability of what Jerry earlier called, books where kids of color are just regular kids. And yet, on a recent school visit to promote the 2023 novel, School Trip, Jerry was still running into the dusty expectation that kids of a certain race could only relate to a certain kind of story.
Jerry Craft: So here's one of the worst things. So in addition to the banning on Goodreads I got, I don't think that my largely poor, largely African American students are gonna be able to relate to these kids going to Paris for a week. So I'm not even gonna show them this book. I'm like, then you shouldn't be their teacher.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: My god. Talk about, you know, expectations and great expectations and that theme. You know? It's like
Jerry Craft: No expectations. And I'm like, okay. But because,
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: actually, if you had read the book, then you would really in particular, like, the way that it ends with him talking to his friend. Right? And, like Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I want you to go.
Right? Yeah.
Jerry Craft: Right. But it's like, again, that's what they tell the black kids, but their white classmates can read Harry Potter and relate to going to Hogwarts and flying on brooms and catching bells, but a black kid can't aspire to go to Paris Yeah. Can actually happen more than anyone else can fly on the broom.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know. I love Ellen Oh always tells a story in her presentations. She always says, like, when she was in a bookstore, the mom was like, that book's not for you. You know, picking up a bit. Then she saw that happen, and then she was like, but, like, are these books about wizard?
If it's not for you based on, like, this so the but, like, a wizard's based on you or, you know, it doesn't make it doesn't make
Jerry Craft: Hey. That's unrealistic to read that book. Here, get this one on a mermaid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Exactly. No sense.
Jerry Craft: Because you can relate to that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You've probably noticed by now that Jerry Craft keeps it very real, and that holds true for his reading challenge.
Jerry Craft: I went with graphic novels
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Okay. Shocking.
Jerry Craft: Because, you know, again, there there are some teachers there was a couple of years ago, a friend of mine said that at her granddaughter's school, they only banned two things: cell phones and graphic novels. What? And if you got caught with either, they would complicate them, and I think you'd have to pay $15 to get them back.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You're joking. Graphic novels?
Jerry Craft: Mhmm. And then there's, I saw online, this woman wrote to, like, this help column and was like, My kid only reads graphic novels. Help. Like, what am I gonna do? So graphic novels first, some people don't understand that.
So I always say this, it's not a novel with graphic content. That's not what they do.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know. Yeah. You're in Orlando. You wanna lead with that. That's for sure.
Jerry Craft: Right. It's illustrated. It's a big old comic book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: For his reading challenge, how it started, how it's going, Jerry curated a group of graphic novels that chronicle his own journey as a creator, from the books that inspired him to those that helped forge his path and finally to those for which he laid the groundwork.
Jerry Craft: So where it started for me was Maus by Art Spiegelman because after the radio show, he sent me volume one and two, and I read it and was blown away. And it was like, wow. I had no idea that you could do that kind of thing. El Deafo by Cece Bell and Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson were the first graphic novels to win a Newbery honor. So I like to feel like they kind of paved the way for me a little bit.
So thank you, Victoria and Cece. Stitches by David Small. I met him at the Wildcat Comic Con in Pennsylvania. We had dinner, and I went through his sketchbook, and I came home, and whatever book I was working on, I, like, threw it in the garbage and started from scratch because I just felt unworthy to be in his company. It's a black and white and really, like
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Spectacular looking.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. So this was like the conversation with Ray Billingsley that was like, okay, another coming out the chrysalis, you know, as a butterfly and flapping my wings. So I feel like that got me to another level. And then a couple that I kind of like to feel like the success of New Kid paved the way for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Okay. Oh, I like that. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: To the world, you could be one person, one person could be the world. This is one of the first that I ever did a cover blurb for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, I love that book.
Jerry Craft: This is Swim Team by Dani Christmas. I've got my cover blurb up there, which is kinda cool. And it's it's so funny because when New Kid first first came out, they were like, for fans of Raina Telgemeier, you know? And then it's like, oh, okay. And now I see books like, for fans of Jerry Craft.
Like, oh. Like, wow.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You can find Jerry's reading challenge and all past reading challenges at the readingculturepod.com. And this week's Beanstack featured librarian is Laurie Shaliol, media specialist at Heritage Intermediate School in Middlebury, Indiana. She tells us about a spicy incentive that pushed her students' reading to the next level.
Laurie Shalliol: I feel our most successful reading challenge was actually our first community challenge, mainly because it really, showcased kind of how my admin and other members of staff kind of came together to really support the kids in their reading goals. So I went to, Mr. Dave Gaskell, our principal, and basically asked him, how how best can we torture you if these kids reach their reading goal? And he came back with the idea of doing, a really interesting, like, hot ones style interview. So our top 10 readers were able to ask him questions as he ate spicier and spicier chicken nuggets, that were made by our lovely kitchen manager, Tracy.
And it was really cool because the minute we announced what was going to happen, it was like the next day that the kids reached their community goal. And it was just really cool to see them all come together and also to really be wrong. And I I completely underestimated how quickly they would get our first community goal done. So we recorded our hot one style interview and all the kids watched it. It was very, very popular.
They loved it and so did we. So it's a really, really good time.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Jerry Craft. Once again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently, I'm reading Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yaros, shout out to my Beanstack Fantasy Slack channel, and Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. If you enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five star review. It just takes a few seconds, and it really helps.
This episode was produced by Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter for special offers and bonus content. Thanks for listening and keep reading.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: There's a snarky t shirt you might have seen that reads, stereotypes are a real time saver. And, hey, sometimes that's true. I mean, if both your parents were famous jazz players, and they sent you to twelve years of music school, and your nickname is Saxxy Maxxy, well, I expect I might guess what you do for a living. But then there are people who take those expectations and make them look outright pointless.
Jerry Craft: I just tried to go against all of those tropes.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Our guest today is an expectation buster. He didn't grow up in a family of writers or even readers. He wasn't a lonely library lover or a junior journaler. And sit down for this one. He can't remember ever liking a single kid's book ever.
What he was motivated to do was to draw and eventually to create the kind of kids books that he never encountered when he was young.
Jerry Craft: The books I like have just kids of color as regular kids and aspire to be them, and I think that's more world changing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jerry Craft is a New York Times best selling author and illustrator, best known for New Kid, the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal. In this episode, Jerry tells us about the one teacher who found the secret to inspiring him, explains how being a black comic strip artist was a lot like the movie Highlander, and ponders whether his dad's night shifts might be the reason he still works best at 3AM. My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, a show where we speak with diverse authors about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive deep into their personal experiences and inspirations. Our show is made possible by Beanstack, the leading solution for motivating students to read more.
Learn more at beanstack.com. And make sure to check us out on Instagram at the reading culture pod and subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content at thereadingculturepod.com forward / newsletter. Alright. On to the show. Hey, listeners.
Are you looking for a fun, easy way to track your reading and earn cool rewards? Well, meet Beanstack, the ultimate reading app used by a community of over 15,000 schools, libraries, and organizations nationwide. Are you an avid reader? Check with your local library to see if they offer Beanstack for free. A parent?
Ask your child's teacher if the school library already uses Beanstack. And if you are an educator searching for a fresh alternative to Accelerated Reader, Beanstack is the perfect tool to cultivate a thriving reading culture. Ready to turn the page? Visit beanstack.com to learn more. I'm gonna start go back in time a little bit to your, like, early life.
So you grew up did you grow up your whole, like, childhood in your from Washington Heights? That's where you're born and raised?
Jerry Craft: Yeah. So the actual house where Jordan Banks lives is the house where I grew up.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Side note, Jordan Banks is the main character in Jerry's New Kid series.
Jerry Craft: So I drew it's a brownstone.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And so his room is basically my room.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Uh-huh.
Jerry Craft: It was a really interesting area in Washington Heights because there was a cobblestone street. Mhmm. And right across the street was something called Morris Duhamel Mansion, which is like a historical landmark. And they had these cannons in front and, like, George Washington used as a headquarters during the war. You know?
Like, that's the law. And then now it's supposed to be haunted. So there used to be tour buses that came all the time.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So interesting. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. And me and my friends used to be out playing softball and football on the lawn at front.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And then the tour buses would come. And one day I looked up and, you know, there's a group of people and it was Queen Elizabeth. And we went over and said hi, and, you know, it was like, okay. But, you know, that's that's the kind of, neighborhood I was in.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: When he wasn't welcoming foreign monarchs, Jerry was busy honing a different set of social skills.
Jerry Craft: My friends around my block, I mean, we were like the little rascals.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: You know? So there were, like, 12 to 15 of us.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's the best.
Jerry Craft: And, I mean, it was the best. Mhmm. You know, of every morning in the summer, we start off ride our bikes or go to the basketball court, and then everyone's up. Then you play the stickball game, and then you go and you do this, and then softball, then skateboards, and then play touch football until the street lights come on or eight, 09:00 at night, and then hot peas and butter. And and then, you know, you you just roast each other.
Yeah. That was it. So I was always one of the smallest of a lot of my friends. Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So Like Jordan.
Jerry Craft: My tongue got to be very sharp.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's right. You gotta make yourself dig in some other ways. Right. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: We used to call it not roasting, but snapping on each other. So I kinda honed the blacksmith with the the sword, you know. And I'm like, you you wanna go toe to toe, I'm good. Like, even sometime I go to high school.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And the kids do something, I'm like, alright. You know, I'm leaving here. You know, after you say your part, I'm a leave here. You're the one that's gonna have to see your friends tomorrow after I say back to you now. You wanna go there?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Out under the streetlights with his crew of friends, Jerry was a big voice with quick wit and a sharp sense of humor. But inside his home, he led a much quieter life, guided by a parent who had grown up in a time when being outspoken wasn't often a safe option for a black man.
Jerry Craft: So my dad was born in 1918. So for an African American man to have lived through a lot that he lived through.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Sorry to interrupt. But where was he born?
Jerry Craft: He was born in New York in Astoria, Queens.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: In 1918.
Jerry Craft: Mhmm. And so, you know, he lived through colored drinking fountains and, you know, just everything that is TV to most people.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: So he didn't expect a lot. So even when I went to a school like Jordan, I ended up going to a field school in Riverdale, but I don't remember him ever coming to parents day. You know, there was kind of a I don't know if he felt intimidated, but, yeah, probably so. You know, because you go there and there are kids getting picked up in limos and cars with diplomatic license plates and, things like that. So there were things that are everyday for you and I that were just like, can we go to that restaurant?
Can we do this? Can we do that? You know? So there was a a humbleness to him. My dad worked nights, so I would wake him up every night at 10PM.
And he would get dressed and catch the subway and then work midnight till eight at the post office, the big post office downtown Manhattan. Mhmm. And he did that my entire young life.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: He always had that night shift, that graveyard shift?
Jerry Craft: Uh-huh.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Did he want that so he could then be with you, like, during the other hours? Is that the idea, or is it just like the those are just the hours of his job?
Jerry Craft: I think initially so that he would be home
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: When I got home from school. But then once I was older, he still kept that until he retired.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: So I would come home from school at, like, 05:00 because I was in the after school program. Mhmm. And we'd have dinner and hang out a little bit, then he'd have to go back to sleep, and then it started again. So I always like to draw. So I am was always kind of a night owl.
So after he would leave, I would start drawing and make my own comic books and, you know, that never changed. I finished drawing at 5AM this morning. I did an all nighter. Wow. And then got a couple hours sleep and here
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I am. Sort of like your dad. Mhmm. Just drawing keeping those hours.
Jerry Craft: Yep. I'm
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: gonna get to drawing in a second. But then, and then your mom was the three of you pretty much when it was besides your other two siblings.
Jerry Craft: Yep. And then they divorced when I was 17.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, interesting.
Jerry Craft: So then it was just me and my dad for about eight years or so, just the two of us. So I was always used to being able to entertain myself by drawing or watching TV or Yeah. You know, whatever. You know? So I know some people panic at the thought of being by themselves because they get bored so easily.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And even now being in my studio is just like a sanctuary. Like, my fortress of solitude. I get work done and my wife and I, I'll stop a couple of times during the day and we'll go and we'll do some stuff. But for the most part, like, I'm I'm good. And it's so weird to go from being alone for so much of the day and then going to ALA where there's, like, 3,000,000 screaming librarians, you know, all all wanting to take selfies and stuff.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I wanna share here that I first met Jerry at one of those conferences where despite his fame and all those screaming fans, he immediately did something that showed how humble and kind he really is. I just said, oh, hey. Jerry turned around like it's Jerry Craft. I think, you know, you're Jerry Craft. And you were like, yeah.
So my kids love your work. You said, oh, great. What are their names? Then you just took out a little I didn't ask. You just took out these two little sheets of paper and put there and made them each a little drawing, which we have it hanging up now.
Jerry Craft: Right. Because it's like, you know, how long did that take out of my life?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.
Jerry Craft: You know, like like, what could I have done that would have been better? Mhmm. You know what I mean? Yeah. In in that, like, five minutes that we engage and for me to sign an autograph to your kids, you know, how could I have used that time better?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.
Jerry Craft: You know? And then you go home, and you take it to your kids. Like, oh, mom. And you get your mom cool points.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Yeah. My cool points. Were you always drawing? Like, it sounds like you were always drawing.
Do you kind of remember, like, discovering, I'm good at this. I enjoy this. Or, like, who gave you your first crayons or that kind of thing?
Jerry Craft: You know, the Sunday funnies were a big thing back then, and then I inherited my brother and sister's Marvel comic collection. So between the Sunday funnies and the Marvel comics, that kinda got me into writing and drawing. And I remember when my brother went to the marines, if I went to see a movie, I would then draw the movie out in comic strip form and mail it to him.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, really? That's so cool. Do you remember which ones some of the ones you did it for?
Jerry Craft: Yeah. You know, I mean, that was back in, like, the Shaft days. Richard Roundtree and Shaft and then Bruce Lee, like, Fist of Fury and Into the Dragon, like, those kind of days. And those
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: So you would actually, like, do all the panels for sending him and then send him the movie your movie rendition of it?
Jerry Craft: Uh-huh. And then I remember in Feelson, my, I think, ninth grade biology teacher, Barbara Silver, let me do my term paper as a comic book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Wow.
Jerry Craft: And it was about the life of a plant. And towards the end, it was winter coming and frost, like in these spaceships shooting the like ice rays. And
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. They had to
Jerry Craft: build energy using photosynthesis and moving stuff up with the xylem and phloem systems and all this stuff. Then I still remember because I worked so much harder on that than I would have if it was just a regular paper that I had to type up. You know? So I definitely encourage teachers if you've got that kid that does something that's a little off the beaten path. Mhmm.
If you can find a way to bring a lesson plan where they can use that kind of thing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. It's cool that she did that because it's I think, like, nowadays, I do think it's maybe more common for people understand the pedagogy of, like, trying to understand how a kid can best communicate that information and give them the tools. And a good scenario with someone who has the tools to be able to do that. You know? Yeah.
But I think you know, when you're in school, like, that was just couldn't have been common to allow somebody to do that. You know?
Jerry Craft: And I think it was maybe Kevin Hart's teacher that told him if he behaved for the entire week, Friday before they went home, he could do comedy in front of the class.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I don't know that story really.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. So those kind of things really make a difference on a kid. And that's the thing. You never know what impacts a kid. Mhmm.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You
Jerry Craft: know? Did she know that fifty years later, I'd be telling the story of how much I remembered it?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. It's wild to think about after all this time, that that experience still stands out so clear for you. Yeah. And I bet I bet she does not know the outsized impact that it had on you. And so you're obviously known as a drawer, as an artist for everybody.
But I'm curious, and I have read that you did not like to read a lot growing up.
Jerry Craft: One book in elementary school, and that was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I remember he was a Seagull. I don't remember anything else. I don't remember literally reading any of and and it's not like I wouldn't have read it because, you know, I was like a honor roll student. Mhmm.
But there's nothing that just that comes to mind. Like, I have no memory. Mhmm. You know? And even writing wise, I remember in Feelson in high school, I read Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, wow.
Jerry Craft: And I had to write a paper on it. And for some reason, I really got it clicked, and I really understood it. And I wrote a really good paper on it. And I remember my English teacher calling me into his classroom. And, hey.
You know? What does your mom do for a living? And what does your dad do? And interviewing just like this. And, you know, he gave me my paper, and it was an a.
And it was probably years later that I was like, you know what? He didn't think I wrote that. He thought, like, my mom or dad wrote that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Wow.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. And I'm like, I'd like to find one day and show my Newbery Medal and pick pick my tongue out at them.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: There was eventually one book that Jerry felt some connection with, and it was probably not a title you'd guess that a, quote, reluctant reader would gravitate toward. For starters, it was more than a century old and set in Georgian England, and yet its themes of limited class mobility and the weight of inherited status rang true to a young man from Washington Heights who was attending a much wealthier neighboring school. Did you guess it yet?
Jerry Craft: So Great Expectations, that was the first book of any substance or any length. It's a long book, though. It's like a 300 page book. And I read it and finished it and enjoyed it, and I was stunned because that was the first I didn't think I could ever read a 300 page book. You
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: know? Mhmm.
Jerry Craft: I remember we had to read American Tragedy, which is, like, 800 pages. And me and one of my friends in the class came up with a plan. They're like, look. I'll read the first four hundred pages and read the second four hundred, and we're comparing those. And neither of us did.
Who would have thought that that plan would have worked out?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Sounds like a very good, high school void plan.
Jerry Craft: Right. But it's like, you know, you can't give some kids 800 page books. I mean, now, you know, their kids are like, oh, I read Harry Potter when I was five. It was 1,500 pages. It's like, oh, okay.
Well, good video.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Whatever. Yeah. I know.
Jerry Craft: No. But that's amazing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: But for some kids, like me, when you see that many words, it just looks like gray paper. Mhmm. You know, so many words, it it just grays out. You know? Mhmm.
At least it was about a kid. That's the one thing. Even though he was a kid from England named Pip, he was about my age or whatever. So at least he was a kid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: And I always say that people had expectations for him. And as a young African American kid, we didn't even expect to live to the end of the book. You know what I mean? Much less climb social hierarchies and socioeconomic and go to all the class systems. It's like, it was nothing like that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Especially like what you were saying about your I think your dad and also having that, like, the inheritance of that where you said his humility and his sort of, like he literally for himself and maybe for you, I don't know about for you, but for himself did not have those own expectations. It was like
Jerry Craft: Oh, yeah. You know, I was, like, first college graduate in the family, first to own a house, first to, you know, those kind of things. So, yeah, it it was just very different.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This is usually the part where guests read a passage, something that shaped them or stuck with them. And I thought Jerry's might be something from Dickens, but he told me he'd prefer to share a quote that he keeps pinned to his wall, a reminder to himself to never underestimate the effect we can have on others.
Jerry Craft: So I'm not really one of these that puts up these sayings or whatever, but I I did see this, and this is actually hanging up. It says, to the world, you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world. When I saw it, the light shines down and the angels start playing the harp, you know, and all that stuff. And as I have seen that and different stories that teachers and librarians have shared with me over the years of, you know, they're coming to me and they've already got tears in their eyes. I'm like, okay.
What's going on? Like, there's a kid in my class, and he has never read a book before. And he read New Kid, and he read it, like, three times. And then he asked me if he could start a book club. I'm like, really?
And they're just bawling. And now I'm about to go up on stage. I'm bawling. I'm like or a teacher who says that, again, a kid who never read came to him and was like, miss Stuarten, can you promise me you'll read this over the weekend so we could talk about it on Monday? And she's like, you're giving me reading homework?
You know? And the fact that this kid could sit down with his teacher and read a Newbery award winning book. And not only that, but sometimes adults, if you didn't grow up reading comics, it's not second nature.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: No. It's not. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: You know, I read I grew up reading comics. It's easy. But there are adults that are like, okay. Do you look at the pictures first?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's, like, pretty sophisticated actually to read. Right. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: But for kids, it's second nature, a lot of them. And so now this kid sitting down again with a award winning book, having to show his teacher how to read that, you know, and enjoying it together and discussing it is like like me doing my biology term paper as a comic book. Like, you just never know the impact that it had on that kid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: To come back to the quote. Like, you just don't realize that that
Jerry Craft: Right. That it could be life altering.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Do you have in mind when you sit down to create a new story? Like, are you consciously imagining how a kid might be inspired by that book?
Jerry Craft: The books I like have just kids of color is regular kids. Yeah. You know, so when you see Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez, or the King of Kindergarten, the Queen of Kindergarten, you know, by Derek Barr, or Big by Varsley Harrison. Yeah. Like those are books that I'm like, any kid can relate to them Yeah.
And aspire to be them. And I think that's more world changing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jerry's path to making those world changing books as an illustrator and author wasn't a straight shot. It was more twists, turns, and bumps than smooth road. Along the way, he began crafting a family comic strip he called Mama's Boys. And eventually, he found a spot working at a comic syndicate, King Features, but also found himself frustrated by the expectations that newspapers and publishers had for a, quote, black comic strip.
Jerry Craft: Each syndicate had one black comic strip. So, like, King Features had Curtis by Ray Billingsley. And then, I think Tribune had Maury Turner's We Pals. LA Times had, like, Herman Jamal by Stephen Bentley. Detroit Free Press had Barbara Brand is where I'm coming from.
So each syndicate had Had one. One it was like Highlander. There could be only one. And you either had to wait for someone to retire or you had to wait for someone to leave the business or hope that you add of their leaves or whatever. You know, they can have 15 talking cat strips.
They can have Garfield and Heathcliff or Yeah. A lot
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: of, like, middle aged mom types. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: Right. But there was one black comic strip. So then news comes in that Universal has picked up Boondocks. And I'm like, well, it was a good run. You know, like, that's it.
Like, I'm never going to get or it's gonna take years before I get another shot at that. So that's when I started to self publish. And 1997, I self published my very first book, Mama's Boys as American Sweet Potato Pie, which is a collection of my comic strips, of my Mama's Boys comic strips.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: That's boys with a z or a zed for my Canadian listeners, a tribute to one of his favorite films, John Singleton's Boys in the Hood. But Jerry's young characters were far from South Central LA in that gritty nineties film.
Jerry Craft: And it was like, you know, I just wanted to do family humor. You know, good kids, you know, respectful. You know, the mom owned a bookstore.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Jerry frequently found that respectful and family friendly weren't what editors were looking for in a comic about a black household.
Jerry Craft: They're always like, hey. You know, you're doing a a black strip. Can you curse? Can you do this? Can and I'm like, no.
I don't I don't wanna do that. And then it ends up that, Stan Mack actually did a real life funny on me with them. People want me to curse in my strips with I just wanna do a family thing. In 1997, I wanted to do a book and sent that out to different publishers and got horrible rejection letters. Again, one of them had an another, dear Jerry.
And I was like, it's not a form letter. It's per someone took the time to read me this letter. Yeah. It's gotta be good. And it was like, you know, this whole black sitcom style works on TV, but it doesn't work in the book.
So to think that this will ever get published, you're kinda wasting your time.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, man.
Jerry Craft: I'm like, shoot. That was mean.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Like the high school writing teacher who doubted that Chekhov essay, the publishing world in the nineties had a lot of preconceptions about what Jerry's work was supposed to look like. Pushing back against those cliches became one of his deliberate goals, a principle that continues to guide his creative process today.
Jerry Craft: So when I did, Jordan's dad, I wanted to have a real hands on dad. Yeah. You know, I didn't want the dad because the other trope in the movies is
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Absent dad. You know? Right.
Jerry Craft: Or or even if he's there, he's not really there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Or he's like a drag he's like literally a physical drag on, you know, or like a neg a negative force.
Jerry Craft: So I don't wanna have Jordan playing baseball, and it's the championship, and it's high school team. And he looks up, and there's one empty chair. Yeah. And that's because dad is working late. Yeah.
He's trying to make partner. And then he gets there as the kids are getting on the bus. And I'm like so I I just tried to go against all of those tropes. Even, you know, the dad is my complexion and the mom is darker skinned.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: We never see that. It's always the darker skinned dad.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It's always a reverse. That's right. And one thing I love about your books, even at the very end, like, there are some people who just suck, and they still just suck at the end. You know what I mean? And it's just real.
Like and there's not like a it's a nice bow on what you know, you have the three years of middle school experience, but there are just some people that just they they just go on being who they are.
Jerry Craft: And and I have to thank my original editor, Angela Leopoldis, for that because when I had the Andy character, I would have tried to explain him, you know, if he hurt people, hurt people. And so I was gonna have this whole big thing. And he basically said, like, you're like, some people just suck.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: While continuing to subvert expectations as a writer, Jerry was also determined to enlarge the range of what African American audiences were offered as readers. He knew firsthand that children's books and media with black characters were often limited to history and biography, creating the confining feeling that somehow all black stories had to be anchored in the suffering of slavery or the struggle for civil rights and justice.
Jerry Craft: Kids have so much on their day to day, you know, on their plate. So many of the movies and books that I had to see as a kid, especially with African American characters
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, yeah.
Jerry Craft: You know, there was an hour and forty minutes of trauma, and then, you know, it ends, you know, in the last ten minutes. It's like, hey. You're free now. Oh, hey. Aren't you happy?
And I'm like, you know, I just watched, Life with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, which I still love the movie. And I'm like, is that a happy ending? I mean, I guess it's happier than them not? Yeah. But that's one of the happier of the movies with African American characters.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah.
Jerry Craft: You know? Because they're always in jail for something that they didn't commit. Yeah. And then and and I always say and I don't even say to you, to give you an idea of what it's like with that trauma as your entertainment, if the only books that you had as a 13 year old girl were like Handmaid's Tale.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Right.
Jerry Craft: You know what I mean? Not that it's not a great book, not that it's not well written, not that it's not whatever. Yeah. But one after the other, you know, you go from Cinderella as a kid and then Handmaid's Tale, and you go to 13 Reasons Why. That kinda messes you up.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: It sure does.
Jerry Craft: There is, a sense of trauma amongst African American readers that I don't even think that we're conscious of. I remember one woman, and these are, you know, grown women in their forties or fifties. She got school trip, and she said she read the first two chapters and really liked it. And then she hadn't read the first two books, New Kid, The Class Act. And then she immediately goes and reads the last chapter to make sure that all the kids are still alive.
Oh. And, you know, like, so many books on slavery and civil rights and police brutality. And like I said, even if the ending, you know, like the last three chapters is like, hey. You know?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Everybody's okay. They have hope.
Jerry Craft: It's okay. But, you know, for those first twenty seven chapters
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You've been through it.
Jerry Craft: Have the weight of the world on your back.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Against that backdrop, Mama's Boys, New Kid, and its sequels are part of a wider movement to boost the availability of what Jerry earlier called, books where kids of color are just regular kids. And yet, on a recent school visit to promote the 2023 novel, School Trip, Jerry was still running into the dusty expectation that kids of a certain race could only relate to a certain kind of story.
Jerry Craft: So here's one of the worst things. So in addition to the banning on Goodreads I got, I don't think that my largely poor, largely African American students are gonna be able to relate to these kids going to Paris for a week. So I'm not even gonna show them this book. I'm like, then you shouldn't be their teacher.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: My god. Talk about, you know, expectations and great expectations and that theme. You know? It's like
Jerry Craft: No expectations. And I'm like, okay. But because,
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: actually, if you had read the book, then you would really in particular, like, the way that it ends with him talking to his friend. Right? And, like Yeah. Yeah. And, like, I want you to go.
Right? Yeah.
Jerry Craft: Right. But it's like, again, that's what they tell the black kids, but their white classmates can read Harry Potter and relate to going to Hogwarts and flying on brooms and catching bells, but a black kid can't aspire to go to Paris Yeah. Can actually happen more than anyone else can fly on the broom.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know. I love Ellen Oh always tells a story in her presentations. She always says, like, when she was in a bookstore, the mom was like, that book's not for you. You know, picking up a bit. Then she saw that happen, and then she was like, but, like, are these books about wizard?
If it's not for you based on, like, this so the but, like, a wizard's based on you or, you know, it doesn't make it doesn't make
Jerry Craft: Hey. That's unrealistic to read that book. Here, get this one on a mermaid.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Yeah. Exactly. No sense.
Jerry Craft: Because you can relate to that.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You've probably noticed by now that Jerry Craft keeps it very real, and that holds true for his reading challenge.
Jerry Craft: I went with graphic novels
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Okay. Shocking.
Jerry Craft: Because, you know, again, there there are some teachers there was a couple of years ago, a friend of mine said that at her granddaughter's school, they only banned two things: cell phones and graphic novels. What? And if you got caught with either, they would complicate them, and I think you'd have to pay $15 to get them back.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You're joking. Graphic novels?
Jerry Craft: Mhmm. And then there's, I saw online, this woman wrote to, like, this help column and was like, My kid only reads graphic novels. Help. Like, what am I gonna do? So graphic novels first, some people don't understand that.
So I always say this, it's not a novel with graphic content. That's not what they do.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: I know. Yeah. You're in Orlando. You wanna lead with that. That's for sure.
Jerry Craft: Right. It's illustrated. It's a big old comic book.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: For his reading challenge, how it started, how it's going, Jerry curated a group of graphic novels that chronicle his own journey as a creator, from the books that inspired him to those that helped forge his path and finally to those for which he laid the groundwork.
Jerry Craft: So where it started for me was Maus by Art Spiegelman because after the radio show, he sent me volume one and two, and I read it and was blown away. And it was like, wow. I had no idea that you could do that kind of thing. El Deafo by Cece Bell and Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson were the first graphic novels to win a Newbery honor. So I like to feel like they kind of paved the way for me a little bit.
So thank you, Victoria and Cece. Stitches by David Small. I met him at the Wildcat Comic Con in Pennsylvania. We had dinner, and I went through his sketchbook, and I came home, and whatever book I was working on, I, like, threw it in the garbage and started from scratch because I just felt unworthy to be in his company. It's a black and white and really, like
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Spectacular looking.
Jerry Craft: Yeah. So this was like the conversation with Ray Billingsley that was like, okay, another coming out the chrysalis, you know, as a butterfly and flapping my wings. So I feel like that got me to another level. And then a couple that I kind of like to feel like the success of New Kid paved the way for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Okay. Oh, I like that. Yeah.
Jerry Craft: To the world, you could be one person, one person could be the world. This is one of the first that I ever did a cover blurb for.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Oh, I love that book.
Jerry Craft: This is Swim Team by Dani Christmas. I've got my cover blurb up there, which is kinda cool. And it's it's so funny because when New Kid first first came out, they were like, for fans of Raina Telgemeier, you know? And then it's like, oh, okay. And now I see books like, for fans of Jerry Craft.
Like, oh. Like, wow.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: You can find Jerry's reading challenge and all past reading challenges at the readingculturepod.com. And this week's Beanstack featured librarian is Laurie Shaliol, media specialist at Heritage Intermediate School in Middlebury, Indiana. She tells us about a spicy incentive that pushed her students' reading to the next level.
Laurie Shalliol: I feel our most successful reading challenge was actually our first community challenge, mainly because it really, showcased kind of how my admin and other members of staff kind of came together to really support the kids in their reading goals. So I went to, Mr. Dave Gaskell, our principal, and basically asked him, how how best can we torture you if these kids reach their reading goal? And he came back with the idea of doing, a really interesting, like, hot ones style interview. So our top 10 readers were able to ask him questions as he ate spicier and spicier chicken nuggets, that were made by our lovely kitchen manager, Tracy.
And it was really cool because the minute we announced what was going to happen, it was like the next day that the kids reached their community goal. And it was just really cool to see them all come together and also to really be wrong. And I I completely underestimated how quickly they would get our first community goal done. So we recorded our hot one style interview and all the kids watched it. It was very, very popular.
They loved it and so did we. So it's a really, really good time.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: This has been The Reading Culture, and you've been listening to my conversation with Jerry Craft. Once again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently, I'm reading Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yaros, shout out to my Beanstack Fantasy Slack channel, and Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. If you enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five star review. It just takes a few seconds, and it really helps.
This episode was produced by Mel Webb, Jackie Lamport, and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at the readingculturepod.com forward slash newsletter for special offers and bonus content. Thanks for listening and keep reading.