Happy School Lunch Hero Day 2019!

‪Happy School Lunch Hero Day! Here’s to all the people who keep our kids’ bellies full and offer kind smiles in the lunch (and breakfast) lines. ‬

‪7 million breakfasts, lunches, and even some suppers prepared in Irving ISD each school year. What a fun day hanging out with these champions!

Schulze Elementary made School Lunch Hero Day trading cards for the students! ‬

Proud to be an Author Ambassador for School Library Month. Here is my 2014 TED Talk about how this day came about and what people have done to share their appreciation for all that is being done in our school cafeterias.

Book Friends Forever & In Contrast

I filled in on the Book Friends Forever podcast! Sure, listen to hear Grace Lin and I discuss 20 years of friendship and making it in the book industry, but really listen to hear all about a potluck dinner gone horribly wrong.

From seeking out writing advice from David Sedaris to reaching deep into traumatic memories, I stopped by In Contrast to discuss crafting my graphic memoir. 

Teen Lit Con

Fantastic day at #TeenLitCon with Lamar "L.R." Giles, Tomi Adeyemi, Becky Albertalli, and a few thousand amazing readers!

Literary Lights

‪Should Jeff Kinney be nervous that I’ll be introducing him at the prestigious Literary Lights ceremony?‬

LA Times Book Prizes Ceremony

A fantastic evening at the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony. A total honor to be in the Young Adult Literature category with Elizabeth Acevedo, Kelly Loy Gilbert, and Emily X.R. Pan. And congratulations, Poet X!

RISD

It is always so very nice to return to RISD’s illustration department. I will always remember the hope I had walking through these doors to go to class, thinking about all of the alumni that studied here before me. I can’t wait to see what the next crop of graduates bring to this world.

Mary Jane and Judy Sue—two RISD professors who had a profound impact on the direction my work took. And four first names amongst them!

Happy Birthday, Beverly Cleary!

This April marked Beverly Cleary’s 103rd birthday. How lucky I am to have her work as a part of the fabric of the literature that I grew up with. Here’s a book report I wrote on Runaway Ralph. Printed on a dot matrix printer…

Art Commissions on Etsy

If you’re interested in ordering a commission before I put my Etsy store back in hibernation mode, please follow this link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/studiojjkshop

I’m taking drawing commissions now ahead of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Also, I updated the shipping settings to send drawings outside of the US.

Q&A Time

 Photo by fitzbetweentheshelves

‪When the audience numbers over a thousand students, I go to them for Q&A... and make a Donahue reference that none of them get. See that little grey spec in the back? That’s me!‬

Indie Choice Book Awards

I am incredibly honored that booksellers have lifted up HEY, KIDDO as a Young Adult Book of the Year Finalist for the 2019 Indies Choice Book Awards. Booksellers across the country will now vote online and winners will be announced in May. But to be fair, I definitely already feel like a winner just to be in the running. 

Read with Malcolm Foundation

A total honor to help Malcolm Mitchell raise money for and awareness of his important work with Read with Malcolm foundation. I have been a huge admirer of Malcolm and his story since I first saw him featured on CBS Sunday morning six years ago. Also, there’s that whole Super Bowl thing too.

Public Speaking

 Photo by Pat Jarrett

I love presenting to large crowds. The energy is palpable! A huge irony, since I used to be terrified of public speaking. In many instances now, I'm running events where students get bused into a larger venue. If you're interested in putting something together, please contact Authors Unbound Agency. After years of organizing my events in-house, we just can't keep up with all of the correspondence. The team at AU has been such a blessing!

(And if you are looking to book an event that is smaller in scale, we're still putting those on the calendar too.)

Thanks, Joan

I am eternally grateful for people who support my work, and Joan Kindig has been doing so since the days of Baghead (2002). Joan first hosted me in Charlottesville at the Virginia Festival of the Book back around 2005, going so far as to host a party at her house to get me in front of area educators. So what a special treat that she was the volunteer to cart me around at this year’s Virginia Festival of the Book! Joan has grandkids now, I have kids now...so we had much to catch up on! I presented to rooms filled with 1,200 kids, something I wouldn’t have even dreamed of back in the day.

The Book Report

‪Just about every week, I’m on SiriusXM Kids Place Live recommending books to kids and their grown-ups.

If you didn’t know, all of my past episodes are archived here.

Thank you!

I am thankful for this journey with HEY, KIDDO. And thankful for the art and stories young people share with me. So often, teachers are asking me what they can do for their kids in these situations. Listen. That’s what they need so desperately. To be heard.

 I love that technology offers me the opportunity to connect with young readers and artists via virtual school visits. Thank you for hosting me and for stopping by my studio, Clear Spring Elementary! 

The ENERGY of 1,200 third-fifth graders at Virginia Festival of the Book! 

REVENGE OF THE SIS!

Jedi Academy: Revenge of the Sis will be here in a few days. March 26!

Get to know Christina Starspeeder better as she takes center stage in the next Jedi Academy book! Revenge of the Sis is a collaboration between Amy Ignatow and me. I am so very excited for you to read it!

You'll also meet Jedi Master Skia-Ro in REVENGE OF THE SIS!

Jedi Academy: Revenge of the Sis

‪A “subtle” hint for my most favorite scene from JEDI: ACADEMY: REVENGE OF THE SIS, out March 26th. ‬

‪I had an absolute blast collaborating with the brilliant Amy Ignatow on this book. ‬

This will never get old—opening a box or my books for the first time.

Hey, Kiddo News

Thank you to the entire Cybils Awards commitee and participants for helping raise awareness of literature for young readers via your online community! So honored to have HEY, KIDDO amongst the list of winning titles.

‪Huge news for HEY,‬ KIDDO. My book is a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Young Adult category!

Happy Birthday, LeVar Burton!

‪Happy birthday, LeVar Burton! I will never forget the opportunity I had to sing the Reading Rainbow theme song on stage with you in 2011. ‬

Out of the Box: The Graphic Novel Comes of Age

It has long been a dream of mine to have my work shown at The Eric Carle Museum. But to be in an exhibit that is also The Carle’s inaugural showing of art from graphic novels? No words to be had.

 Honored to be a part of this crew. All of the graphic novels selected by Leonard Marcus are about coming of age, just as the format has come of age for young readers in the last decade.

If you can get to The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art before this exhibit closes at the end of May, GET THERE! And if not, here is a brief look at this wonderful exhibit. I am so proud to be a part of this show and the grander tradition of telling stories with words and pictures—and word balloons.

At home with cartoonists and pugs.

After a weekend of events at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Raina Telgemeier and Vera Brosgol came over for dinner and they brought along their friends—and our new friends— Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline. What an incredibly fun evening!

Meeting Justice Sotomayor

When I met Justice Sonia Sotomayor at the SCBWI gala, I mentioned that we had both been finalists for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award. She was remiss to miss ALA but her “day job” prevented her from the travel to Seattle.

Justice Sotomayor offered remarks at the event, and wow. She is inspiring beyond words.

One Town One Book

‪Thank you again to the incredible library teams in Waupaca and Wisconsin Rapids! You really made my inaugural One Town One Book events something I’ll never forget! Nor will the young readers—which is why I know you all work so hard to make these moments happen.

Visiting Waupaca, WI

Today, I spoke to nearly 2,000 K-12 students. Thank you to the librarians, teachers, and students of Waupaca, WI, for such an inspiring day!‬

‪At another recent event, a woman came up to me and said, “I wanted you to meet an octogenarian who wasn’t allowed to read comics as a kid but I finally read a graphic novel and it was yours and I loved it.”

At that same event? A teenager who told me they felt seen in HEY, KIDDO.