Sketchbook Saturday - Faces by Zoe

I love drawing with my daughter as much as I love reading with her—which is a tremendous amount! This week, she really took me by surprise by drawing these faces. Seriously, my hand did not touch the paper once.

Then she drew a picture of me.

So I drew a picture of her, which she embellished.

Sketchbook Saturday

Sand castles in the dwindling dog days of summer.

I hope everyone is staying safe out there!

Baghead by Juan

*SPOILER ALERT* This drawing gives away the end of Baghead, but man, isn't it great? It's by Juan and I hope he keeps drawing, he's very talented!

Do you have a note or a drawing that you'd like to share? I would love to see them!
They can be emailed to me via props@studiojjk.com or mailed to:
 Jarrett J. Krosoczka
PO Box 60155
Florence, MA 01062

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.

Sketchbook Saturday—Daddy/Daughter Edition

I brought my sketchpad to the beach hoping to make a few gesture sketches of my daughter playing in the sand. But that didn't last long. She was more interested in drawing as well!

So I just drew her while she scribbled on the pad.

 Then we drew a landscape together. Ocean by Zoe. Boat by me.

Updated Lunch Lady book trailer

In HD and with art from LL6!

Ollie the Purple Elephant - HD book trailer

Learn more about the story of Ollie!

Sketchbook Saturday: watercolor edition

Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty's 5th Birthday

Here's my re-imagining of (then) 6 year old Gracie's drawing.

Gracie Makes Friends With a Monster

Happy birthday to a super-fun and creative blog!

Dan Santat's Lunch Lady

My author/illustrator pal Dan Santat posted this to his Facebook today. You can almost hear me saying "WHOA!" from wherever you are. (That would be a Bill and Ted "WHOA!", not a Joey Lawrence "WHOA!")

Check out Dan's rendition of Lunch Lady:

 

RIGHT?! Amazing! Which is what his graphic novel Sidekicks is—AMAZING! Did you get your copy yet?

LL story ideas from kids

I always love when kids come up with adventures for Lunch Lady to go on!

Here's Lunch Lady and the Toast Aliens by Foster:

And here's a suggestion to write Lunch Lady and Revenge of the Author by Chelsie:

And checkout this great drawing of LL by Ian!

All such talented writers and illustrators! Keep up the great work!

Have you created a new adventure for Lunch Lady? Care to share? I would love to see it!
They can be emailed to me via props@studiojjk.com or mailed to:
 Jarrett J. Krosoczka
PO Box 60155
Florence, MA 01062

Well, somebody's gotta write this book...

Sketchbook Saturday

Waves at lowtide.

LL6 is a Junior Library Guild selection!

I'm honored to have Lunch Lady and the Field Trip Fiasco included in the Fall 2011 Junior Library Guild selections.  If you are a JLG subscriber, look for LL6 to pop up in your fall shipments!

Thank you, JLG!

LL Gadget ideas from kids

Check out this device sent in from Chirchill Elementary in Virginia! It's a Toaster File. Secret messages get toasted into the bread and then self destruct into crumbs. I love it! Only in a suburb of DC!

Do you have a note or a drawing that you'd like to share? I would love to see them!
They can be emailed to me via props@studiojjk.com or mailed to:
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
PO Box 60155
Florence, MA 01062

October workshop on the business of children's books

In conjunction with my exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, I will be teaching a workshop called, "The Business of Children's Books". You can register online here! Here's some info on the three hour workshop:

Join Worcester native and award-winning author/illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka and see the world through the eyes of a professional children's book artist. Jarrett will share his experience growing up as an artist, the rejections he faced, and the growth of his writing and illustrating process. He'll also cover the submission process and distribute a packet of handouts with tips for beginning writers and illustrators. A question and answer session will be followed by a walk through the exhibition, Monkey Boy to Lunch Lady: 10 Years of Jarrett J. Krosoczka. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, Jarrett has published several children's and pre-teen books including Good Night, Monkey Boy; Punk Farm; and the Lunch Lady Series.

Sketchbook Saturday

A flock of seagulls! 

@MrSchuReads and reads and reads and reads

School librarian Mr. Schu trekked out on his annual summer road trip and brought along a copy of Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians. He read it in all sorts of places, check it out:

Clearly a librarian in a league all his own!

You can follow his adventures on his travel blog.
If you were to follow only one kid lit Twitterer, make it @MrSchuReads.
And be sure to bookmark his great blog where he catalogs book trailers.

Finished inking LL7

 

This brings me to 679 total pages inked for the Lunch Lady series. Look for Lunch Lady and the Mutant Mathletes in March '12!

Sketchbook Saturday on Sunday

Life at the summer studio is running at its own pace.

Planning my fall

Lots of great store and library visits are in the works.  Planning a radio takeover of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child, and an Ollie dance party at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. An exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, also sending artwork down to Houston, TX to Imago Dei in conjunction with the class I'm teaching at Sam Houston State University. Not to mention a trip to DC for the National Book Festival and School Library Journal's Leadership Summit. And Henderson, NV is giving me the key to their city.

Who's ready to party?

Google +

You can circle me? One plus me? Whatever the verb is, I am on Google+. You can find me here.

A new social network -- color me exhausted. But worth the try. I've added a few unseen pieces of art from OLLIE on my profile there.

Sketchbook Saturday: notes from the summer studio

I was incredibly lucky as a kid to spend my summers at the beach. And now I feel even luckier to be raising my family on the New England seacoast in the summers. I travel a lot during the school year and the summer belongs fully to my family, so I've set up a summer studio at the old family beach house.

This is the view on my morning walks with Ralph. It's also where, as a child, I would search for crabs and starfish.

Shout-out to photographer Paul Specht

Photographer Paul Specht came by the studio last month to snap some updated author pics. I highly recommend him. Whether you need an author photo or a portrait of your child, visit him at www.paulspecht.com. He's great, easy to work with and he shoots with digital and film. (Some kind of fancy film that gives the cool color effects you see below.)

For high-resolution images of my author photos for your dart board, locker or publication, please visit: www.studiojjk.com/pressfiles.html.

 

Look what came in the mail!

Advanced copies of LL6! Holding your finished, printed for the first time will never not be awesome! Lunch Lady and the Field Trip Fiasco will be on bookshelves two months from today!

3 months to Ollie

Marika from the Odyssey Bookshop wrote a very kind review of my next picture book. You can read it here.

I can't wait for the rest of you to read it, too!

Sketchbook Saturday

Another daddy/daughter callobaration:

My unknowing secret life

A mother brought her two kids to the library to see "the Lunch Lady guy" talk about his books. Turns out, he's her neighbor.

Yes, for the past few years the kids next door have been reading Lunch Lady and had no idea the guy who said hello to them every day wrote the books they were reading. Who knew! I guess now, we do.

Comics get Librarian Love

I'm honored to have Lunch Lady highlighted in two major librarian periodicals. School Library Journal's July issue has "Comic Relief: Thirty-nine graphic novels that kids can't resist" and  the recent issue of ALA's Book Links has "Twenty Ridiculously Humorous, wickedly wild, visually arresting, acidly irreverent, and possibly appealing series for those young and old readers who enjoyed captain underpants books and want more". How's that for an article title?

Thank you librarians! You are in a league all your own!

Why "Thank you Wisconsin!"?

Many have wondered over the years—why did I set Punk Farm in Wisconsin? At the time of the book's writing, I had never stepped foot in the state. But I had worked many years at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp with Wisconsin resident Fr. Domenic Roscioli. Fr. Dom, who volunteered and would thereby be constantly humbled by working under early twenty-somethings staff members like myself, was a staple at camp. A cancer survivor himself, he has accomplished many amazing things—including growing his philanthropic business, which was just featured in Milwaukee's Journal Sentinal.

The article is a great read. Check it out here.

Also, look for bags of Fr. Dom's Duck Doo Compost ("Food for the soil") hidden in Punk Farm's barn.

Lilly Library - July 5, 6PM

I'm helping kick-off my local library's summer reading program on Tuesday, July 5th at 6PM. So once you've put away all of the barbecue supplies and lawn games, come on by!

Lilly Library
19 Meadow Street
Florence, MA 01062