10 Great Picture Books for Holiday Gift-Giving

I stopped by my local NBC affiliate and promoted some of my favorite new picture books on Mass Appeal. Have some kids that you still need to shop for? Get some book recommendations in the video above!

How to Make It Once You've "Made It"

If you have an hour to kill and want to know more about a career in children's books, the lecture I gave at RISD's Entrepeneur MindShare is now online. In it, I retrace my steps from my first book submission in 1997 to where I am today.

http://mindshare.risd.edu/speakers/jkrosoczka.php

And in case you're curious, that last quote that is made illegible by the reproduction:

"I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man." - Jay-Z

Drawing Detectives Rick Zengo and Corey O'Malley from Platypus Police Squad

All Things Considered, this was beyond words

What an absolute treat to be on one of my most favorite radio programs, and interviewed by one of my most favorite correspondents. However amazing you think Michele Norris might be in person, multiply that by a hundred, and that's what you get! I am so honored to have been May's Backseat Book Club selection on NPR's All Things Considered!

Give it a listen here! 

Also, check out this fantastic video that they produced!

If Wes Anderson were 8 and directed a Platypus Police Squad movie

Castelton Elementary School in NY got a hold of a Platypus Police Squad ARC and made this video. What's most amazing, this was a few months ago and the book is only coming out tomorrow! And that's not to mention the PPS-themed lunch and PPS fan art that adorned the school hallways! They win "first"!


A) How awesome to have a librarian with a green screen and B) there is a future Wes Anderson amongst this group!

A new Lunch Lady video. A new Lunch Lady song. Now with real lunch ladies!!

What happens in the cafeteria when kids are in class? Not only does the school lunch staff fight crime, but they get their groove on! Check out the brand new Lunch Lady video below!

A HUGE thank you to Recess Monkey for putting together such a killer song! You can download the song here!

Thank you to the 

School Lunch Superheroes at:

Rock Springs Elementary

Lawrenceville, GA

York Elementary

York, NE

Latimer School

Weatogue, CT

Center School

Hopkinton, MA

Parkview Elementary

Roseville, MN

Veterans Memorial Elementary

Naples, FL

Canterbury Woods Elementary

Annandale, VA

Simonian Center for Early Learning

Sutton, MA

Family literacy nights and Punk Farm performances!

I have just had the pleasure of visiting with schools in upstate New York. Smith School and Canisteo-Greenwood School both hosted family literacy nights while I was in town, and what a great way for the schools to bring their community together in celebration of the book! I spoke at both events and the students loved having that extra time with the author. They introduced me to their parents as if we were old friends!

And BOTH schools put on Punk Farm skits! The kids were psyched, as was I! I love watching creative (and brave) teachers put on performances of my books. A true honor.

Here is a photo of the players at Canisteo-Greenwood:

And a video of the performance at Smith:





Also throughout the night, kids made bookmarks and other bookish crafts. There were also prizes to be won! Raffle tickets were given just for showing up and the prize baskets were all book theemed. For example, a copy of Bubble Bath Pirates! was given away with bath toys and a copy of Punk Farm was given away with a basket of instruments. And the homerooms with the most students in attendance won a set of books for their classrooms! Brilliant, right?!

Thank you to all of the superb educators and parent volunteers who pulled these nights together!

photo by www.strinnistudio.com 

photo by www.strinnistudio.com 

Note all the kids dressed as cowboys/girls and pirates!
photo by www.strinnistudio.com 

Awesome videos by the kids at Parkview Elementary!

On a recent visit to Parkview Elementary, I was greeted by these incredible videos ahead of my assemblies. I was just blown away by the love these kids gave my books!

Thank you to the awesome kids at Parkview and their awesome librarian, Laura Given!

called up from the farm league, my TED talk is now on the main page of ted.com

Surreal doesn't even begin to describe this. Today, my TED talk is featured on the main page of ted.com. I'm so honored that the editors at TED curated my video to be featured here. I even have a profile page at ted.com. (Check that out here.)

Without a doubt, this is an accomplishment made possible through all of the overwhelming support you guys gave this vid on YouTube. My talk now has the official fancy TED intro and everything!

My TEDx talk: Imagining Beyond Your Circumstances

Hi folks,

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may already know this story. Last month I had the great opportunity to give a TEDx talk. And it was completely unexpected. Gina and I were planning the rest of the Friday workday and then the evening when around 2 pm the phone rang.  It was a friend who worked at Hampshire College. She ran the TEDx talks at the school and would I like to give a talk? Of course, I would. In a few months? Somebody had cancelled and they were hoping I could fill in . . . for a TEDx talk that started in FOUR HOURS! 

Fortunately, I had a slideshow filled with childhood artwork at the ready. The talk, however, was unlike any I had given before. I talked very candidly and openly about growing up as I did.

I really love how TEDx summarived my talk: "Jarrett J. Krosoczka tells us how imagination and the encouragement to pursue artistic expression transformed his life."

I hope that you all enjoy the video.

Most sincerely,

JJK

Reading Rockets

You can bring authors right into your classroom via the zillions of interviews available from Reading Rockets. They've recently posted an extensive interview with me. The interview is broken up into short clips, perfect for the young reader eager to learn more about how I wrote Lunch Lady and what I was like as a kid.


You can watch the videos on Reading Rockets' website here!

Or you can choose to peruse their YouTube channel here.

Enjoy!

Travel through space and time and attend last year's National Book Festival

The Library of Congress has posted a whole bunch of videos on their website. Attend all of the authors' sessions by clicking here!

Dad Labs

Back in December, I was interviewed by my pals over at DadLabs.com. Because of all the chaos a new baby brings to the home, I'm only getting around to posting this here now.

Head over to DadLabs.com and find a treasure-trove of resources for the dad in your life!

I stopped by my local NBC affiliate to chat about Ollie

Earlier today, I appeared on Mass Appeal to talk about Ollie and this Saturday's party at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. The Ollie reading will begin at 2 p.m. and will be followed by a family dance party!

Author Jarrett Krosoczka: wwlp.com

SLJ Leadership Summit = Awe-some

The School Leadership Summit was outstanding! It's always nice to be at a conference where attendees don't need to decide which session to attend—every event happened in the same room with the same audience. Librarians came in from all over the country and it was wonderful to meet many educators I've only known through social networks.

As the title of the conference suggests, it was a bit like the Justice League of educators.

I was there to talk about graphic novels with two very talented colleagues, George O'Connor (Olympians) and Eric Wight (Frankie Pickle).

Here we are in a top-secret conference room devising a plan ahead of our slotted stage time.

OK, really we were just posing for pictures sent out via Twitter. But don't we look busy?

We had a blast! I've worked with both Eric and George, but they had never met.  

It went off without a hitch. You can see for yourself below. Perhaps we should take our show on the road?

SLJ Summit 2011: Reading Graphic Literature from School Library Journal on Vimeo.

Read School Library Journal's recap of the Leadership Summit. Perhaps you'll be attending next year?

Trailer-palooza

I just finished making YouTubable book trailers for my backlist. (All part of a major rehaul of StudioJJK.com, more on that soon!)









They will all soon be neatly organized on my website, but in the meantime, you can catch all of my trailers at YouTube.com/StudioJJK.

OLLIE - book trailer

 

You won't formally meet Ollie until October, but in the meantime, get to know him in this video.

Reading is Fundamental kick-off event with new sponsor Carl Buddig & Co

During Children's Book Week, I had the great pleasure and honor of helping Reading if Fundamental kick-off their partnership with new sponsor, Carl Buddig & Co. The lunchmeat brand has already committed $100,000 to RIF! It was an amazing day at Jenner Elementary Academy. Thanks to the generosity of Random House Children's Books, every single kid at the school walked away with a brand-new free book. And I signed every single one of them! To see some photos of the day, check out RIF's Flickr page. And please do check out the video below.

Who was the biggest diva?

Yesterday, a film crew descended upon the studio for a top-secret documentary. (More on said top-secret documentary later.)

In the meantime, guess who was the biggest diva of the day?

Was it...

A) The author/illustrator who demanded only organic, cage-free bottled water?






B) The pug who refused store brand peanut butter?






C) The desk lamp who refused to cooperate and just wouldn't sit still?







If you guessed C, the uncooperative desk lamp, you are CORRECT!






They eventually needed to just tape it to the wall. And retape and retape...such a diva!

I'll tell you more about this awesome project in a few months, in the meantime, enjoy these behind-the-scene pics:

Many thanks to Peter and his amazing crew!

What was one of the best days of my professional life

Hamilton Elementary completely blew me away with what they called "JJK Day". I have visited so many wonderful schools so far in 2011 and would blog about each of them if I was more organized and if deadlines didn't sometimes get the best of me. But I'd be remiss if I didn't share some pictures and videos of what Jennifer Lucas did over at Hamilton El in Houston, TX. She created "JJK Day", which was an end of the year celebration and classrooms needed to win their way into the presentations. Kids worked together to make the most amazing videos! And Jennifer and her library aide even donned their Lunch Lady and Betty costumes for the day!

Check out the decorations put up around the school:

 

And the craziest part of the day—it almost didn't happen! It was scheduled for February 4th. I was in Houston for the week, but with the impending "snow storm", school had been canceled preemptively. Luckily, it all worked out with schedules for me to return to Houston for this awesome day!

Here are some of the videos that were made for the contest:

Check out all of my characters moshing to Punk Farm!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgd51qfCo7Q

A dramatic retelling of Annie Was Warned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3QDo4P4qKk

A Lunch Lady play:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB8Ej3Ag3sw

A Punk Farm / Baghead puppet show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-rYgwN8aso

And there are more! Check out all of them at my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/studiojjk