September 30, 2025 • 29 mins
Teri McCready is back with part two of her new series called "Reading the Room." For part two, McCready speaks with Author Jerry Craft.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jerry McCready. Children's book illustrator Jerry Kraft is well
known for his syndicated newspaper comics Rip Mama's Boys, as
well as his popular graphic novels New Kids, School Trip
and Class Act. Jerry is among just a few syndicated
black cartoonists in the nation. He talks about how his
childhood experiences helped him launch a brilliant career in part
(00:21):
two of Reading the Room on the Black Information Network.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It started way back with a little boy who was
born in Harlem and grew up in Washington Heights and
absolutely hated nothing more than reading books. I always loved
to draw, but reading was just something that never interested me.
(00:49):
I feel like I went from reading Doctor Seuss or
having that read to me by my parents, to reading
some Marvel comics but mainly skipping past the boring part
but get into the fight scenes, to reading almost nothing.
But I was at kids who love to draw, and
(01:09):
I ended up needing to write stories in order for
me to draw up my stories, you know, because I
wanted to do more than just draw pictures of Spider Man,
you know. And then by about seventh grade, I went
to a new school and met up with a few
(01:31):
guys that liked to draw comics as well, my friend
Eric and Winston, and we would start to draw our
own comics. And it was good that I didn't meet
someone who wanted to partner up and write the books
with me, because I think if I had had a
(01:52):
writing partner, I would have never realized that I could
write myself. And then, you know, I'll let you go
piece by piece to guide me through my answers. But
that's kind of where it started. And if you had
ever told me that that kid who hated to read
would grow up to be an author who travels the
(02:12):
world trying to get kids to read, I would have
never never believed you.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
So, you know, I look at your story and part
of it is just a bit introspective, I guess, because
you have said before that, you know, maybe you were
a bit of a fish out of water, one of
a few black students at a predominantly white school. Did
you ever look at art, for example, or drawing was
Did you ever look at that besides being a hobby
(02:38):
a way to kind of escape and just create something
of your own outside of what was actually going on
in reality.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, you know, whenever I do school visits, I say
that the basis behind new Kid is not just being
a fish out of one water, but having always been
a fish out of two waters. Meaning it started in
(03:09):
Washington Heights, where I was, you know, where I grew up,
where I was born, and grew up light skin, straight hair,
small for my age, and all my friends so even
in like you know, more friends were darker skin with
cool braids and curly afros that I could never get
(03:30):
because my hair was straight. You know, they were taller,
you know. In schools, I was always a year younger
than everyone, you know, so I got a lot of,
you know, different things of not really fitting in there,
(03:52):
having girls go oh wow, you know, you're really cute
if only you were a little darker, or you know,
why do you talk like that, you know, or you're
trying to be all this or you know. And so
by the time I went to high school, I always
(04:12):
wanted to go to an art school, and my mom
and dad did not want me to. So I had
taken the test for music and Art and Design in
New York City and they sent me to a school
in Riverdale called Fieldston, which I had never seen anything
like it it looked like what I imagined Harvard to be,
(04:39):
just because I mean there were trees and there was
a campus. And you know, instead of twenty five kids
in my class at Saint Matthew's Lutheran School, now there's
one hundred and ten kids in my ninth grade class
at Fieldston. You know, at Saint Matthew's there was like
(05:03):
one white kid, one Latina, and one kid from India.
And now there's only ten African American kids in my
ninth through twelfth grade class. And then half of those
kids had been there their whole lives, so I didn't
really have much in common with them either. You know,
(05:25):
a lot of them were were, you know, financially in
a whole another bracket than my family, you know. So
we would go to Woolworths or toys Eras and they'd
be going to Fao Schwartz and some of these fancy
toy companies and stuff, and so it was just, you know,
(05:46):
we vacationed differently. It was just very different. And so
I put a lot of that in New Kid, and
the prior to that, in My Mama's Boys comics tip.
It was you know, two teenage boys who hated to read,
(06:07):
and their mom owned the bookstore. So I always kind
of started with myself and then branched out to make
the characters more interesting when I had to.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So your life experiences really informed some of the choices
that you made with your books, as you just mentioned,
and I have to say, you know, we're talking about
a very unique approach that you have taken with your books.
Charming characterizations, the narratives are very interesting. They do not
(06:43):
insult the intelligence of your readers at all, ultimately focusing
on positive outcomes. There are adoring family structures, memorable characters.
And I say that because you know you're talking about
your readers who are children, and these children today are
facing some very complex and very unusual, uh life circumstances
(07:06):
sometimes and we're talking about serious issues, and I know
that you know you have taken steps to address some
of those big feelings, as they say, for children. You
know you've focused on these things head on racism, social
racial exclusion you just mentioned colorism, you know among your peers,
and even diabetes. So how do you encapsulate these groundbreaking
(07:30):
issues into a formula that is actually relatable to children?
What is that process like for you?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So it was it was really funny. I guess I
was in my early twenties and I had grown up
also loving comic strips, and so you the you know,
for those under certain aids, they'll never experience what the
big deal it was getting like the New York Daily
(07:59):
News on Sunday and getting the Sunday funnies, you know.
And then there were a lot of books that collected
those comic strips, and they were anthologies like a Calvin
Hobbs or Farsad or for Better for Worse, and they
were really popular. But there were so few African American
(08:21):
comic strips. It was Curtis and Jumpstart and where I'm
coming from and Luther and Herb and Jamal, but they
didn't they weren't given the same exposure as a lot
of the you know, they're white contemporaries, like their comic strips,
you know, when you talk about the Peanuts or Blondie
(08:42):
or Beetle Bailey that were in thousands of newspapers. So
I wanted to do an anthology of my Mama's Boys
comic strip and I got rejection after rejection after rejection,
and some of them even personal, and that made me. See.
(09:02):
Early on, we're talking like nineteen ninety seven, I gave
up on the concept of ever being published because some
of the rejection letters was so nasty. And so I
published my own book, Mama's Boys's American Sweet Potato Pie.
And I was thinking that I was doing it for
(09:23):
adults like me who like comic strips. And I remember
doing a book festival in New York City and this
guy came up to me with his ten year old
son and he says, hey, you know, can I get
this for my kid? And I hadn't intended it to
be for kids, but I thought of it. I was like, well,
(09:46):
you know, there's no sex, there's no cursing, there's no drugs,
there's no gangs, there's I was like, yeah, yeah, I
think it's safe. And he bought it and he gave
it to his kid, and it was The book fair
was in like a gymnasium, and the kid goes to
the corner of the gym and just read cover the
cover and laughing hysterically, and I was like, oh, shoot, okay.
(10:10):
And then ten minutes later someone else comes up and says, hey,
is this a kid's book. I'm like, yes, it is,
and that's kind of how I backed in the being
a Chodn's book author. And I think that that was
the best way, because if I had intended for my
audience to be kids, I might have tried to lower
(10:33):
the level, you know, lower the vocabulary, lower some of
the concepts and intelligence to try to I don't want
who used to turn dumb it down, but you know
that's that's what I'm saying. So I always took it
(10:53):
where I wanted to bring kids up to the level
of my writing as opposed to lowering the level to
make it more palatable for them. And then I just
challenged them. And I talk about I've done comic ships
back in the day in New York City for American
Diabetes Association. I remember the New York Daily News asking
(11:18):
me to do Mama's Boys comic ships for their aid supplement.
And this is like in ninety eight. Maybe I've done
stuff on teenage pregnancy, American counts for fitness and nutrition.
And then slowly but surely my niche became taking really
(11:39):
difficult topics and making them approachable for people of all ages.
I even did a new kid comic book about the
girl with leukemia one time, and so when it came
time to doing something about the new kid in this
private school, that was easy compared to the other stuff
I had already be done.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
You just talked about that one kid who just ran off,
this avaricious reader, you know, just totally engrossed in your book,
And what a feeling of gratification that must have been
for you. You know, you're a wildly popular author. You
have legions of avid fans eager for your offerings, and
I just, well, this is kind of a two part question,
(12:22):
So I wonder what some of your favorite moments would
be in garnering direct feedback from readers. Is there one
underlying message, some universal communicat that you would hope to share?
That's part one, Part two. I'm wondering for myself if
there's any way that we would ever see in the
vein of Diary of a Whigby Kid with Mama's Boys.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Well, I'll tell you some of the best things. When
I love doing big book festivals, like tomorrow I'm heading
to the National Book Festival in Washington, d c. So
and I've done like American Library Association Annual Convention, and
(13:10):
you know, different things like that and I can already
tell when the teacher comes to me and their eyes
are already watering that we're about to share something. And
I remember one woman said her kid hated to read,
(13:30):
and she gave him a copy of New Kid, and
he literally cried when he finished the book because he
had never seen himself and a book, and he just
felt validated. There was a white kid in Buffalo, New York,
and I say he's white just because when I was
(13:53):
growing up, I was always led to believe that black
stories were only for black kids, that it was up
to you and I. You know, we could watch the
parts of his family in Gilligan's Island and you know,
Brady Bunch and identify with them, but they could never
identify with black characters. So this kid who hated to
(14:17):
read reads my book New Kid, and ends up starting
a book club afterwards. And that was another tear filled teacher,
you know, who came over to share that. And then
the last one off the top of my head was
a woman and this kid who also hated the read
(14:39):
came up to her and said, you know, miss Johnson,
promise me that you will read this book over the
weekend so we could talk about it on Monday and
she's like, oh, wait, hold up, you're giving me reading homework.
And you know, they just really bonded over that book.
(15:01):
So when I get invited to schools that have done
a one book, one school read, where you know, all
the kids read it, all the teachers, the bus driver,
the lunch ladies, like literally everyone in the school reads it.
And then I go and visit and answer questions. Or
(15:22):
I've even done book signings and Kenya and Singapore to see,
you know, signing copies of my book in Chinese and
you know, seeing it in like thirteen different languages is
absolutely something that I never thought that this kid from
(15:43):
Warston Heights, would you know that that would be my story?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
What an epiphty that must be for you to have
that aha moment with the relatability and the connection you
know that you've made and that you're making with these children.
And so this was, you know, something that I was,
you know, trying to make this connection about heated rhetoric
when it comes to literature, and we've been seeing it
(16:10):
over the years, and I know a couple of your
books were subjects of some of this brief controversy. I
know it happened in Texas, one of the independent school districts.
What was that all about? And what were your thoughts
when it was finally resolved? As it pertains to looking at,
you know, the big picture of what we're now facing
in terms of suitable children's literature, And I have to
(16:33):
ask you, you know, before you explain what that was
all about, do you now consider it a slippery slope
or are your books kind of a journey toward opening
substantive dialogue.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well, one of the biggest problems is that there never
is any dialogue. You know. I can tell when I
get an email in the first few lines if someone
is just okay, they had a bad day and they're
(17:10):
going to take it out on me for you know,
a book that they didn't even read or did not understand.
But there's almost no dialogue at all. It's just threats.
You know. I've even gotten a few death threats, which
is ridiculous. I got one that was something like, you know,
(17:39):
you must suffer from some kind of mental illness thinking
that it's your job to indoctrinate an entire generation of kids.
I'm like, indoctrinate towards empathy and kindness, like did you
read the book? And this was October of twenty twenty one,
(18:00):
and I got a DM on Twitter telling me that
there was a woman in Katie, Texas that had challenged
my books and demanded that it got taken out of
the school library. And I was supposed to do a
zoom with the entire school district, so we're talking maybe
(18:23):
twelve hundred kids. So they canceled that visit. They took
my books out the out there school library. But then
I commended school board. They actually took the books home
and read them and after a week they were like,
there is nothing wrong with these books at all, so
(18:48):
we're going to put them back and mister Kraft, if
you would be so kind as to forgive us, and
can we reschedule your presentation? And out of the twelve
hundred families, they gave them an opportunity to opt out
if they wanted. I think four families opted out, and
(19:10):
I did the presentation, and you know, when I I
think one of the things is a lot of people
early on had told me that I was teaching critical
race theory, which I had to google it at the
time because I did not know what that even was.
(19:33):
And you know, there were terms like Marxists and I
mean just stuff that they were just pulling out of
their out in there without having ever read the book
and making up stuff that happened. And so the sad part,
(19:59):
I mean, it worked out in a sense where I
got more notoriety. You know, I got to be on
The Daily Show, I got to be on Don Lemon's
show and Joy Reid's show and NPR. So that was
a positive, but it was also sad because you know,
(20:24):
new Kid is a graphic novel, and that's the other thing.
Some people think that it means it is a novel
filled with graphic content instead of a big old comic book,
so they go in for that. But I won the
Kirkis Prize in twenty nineteen. It was the only graphic
(20:48):
novel to ever win. I won the Newberry Medal, which
is like the Oscars of Cartooning in January twenty twenty.
It was the it's the only graphic novel to ever win.
I won the Credit Scott King Author Award that same day,
so it was it's the first graphic novel to ever win,
(21:11):
the second book in history to win the Newberry and
the Credit Scott King Author Award and the only book
in history, not only black book, the only book ever
to win the Newberry, the Kirkus, and the credit Scott King.
And there was almost no notoriety for that. But as
(21:33):
soon as there's some negative storyline, now all of a sudden,
it's a worldwide thing and I've got the BBC calling,
and you know, so that part was said, I wish
that they had celebrated with me as opposed to just
(21:54):
looking for a news story, you know, a negative new story.
And a lot of people, even our own community, it's like, wow,
there's a black author. Are you telling me that a
black author is the only person in history to win
thows three awards? Like, there's not been that kind of embrace.
(22:15):
What's is said?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
You know, I can help, but you know, wonder you
know why there's this sort of hyper focus on this
level of negativity. It's just a huge political breeding ground
to the point where if you look at, you know,
some of the literature that you know, we were all
reading when we were you know, preteens and teens today
(22:40):
probably would not even pass Mustard. I'm talking about the outsiders.
Are you there? God's it's me, Margaret, you know, because
there's too much talk about menstruation, you know, Caturre the wry,
and so I feel like in that sense, feels a
little bit like we're going backwards in terms of how
much can kids handle? And so with your books that
(23:00):
are really bringing kids in with this high rate of
again you know, relatability, talk about harmless, but yes, raising
the educational level significantly. I don't understand that pushback.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well, I need to edit your one statement. It's not
how much can kids handle? It's how much do they
want white kids to have to handle? And that's just
how it is, because how many books did you have
(23:37):
to read as a kid when they were the people
that look like you are were enslaved or you know,
being targeted during the Civil rights era, or gangs or
everyone that looked like you at nineteen is already a
(24:02):
mom dating a drug dealer. You know. I never saw
myself in a book or even a movie. You know.
The closest I had ever come I was probably twenty
seeing Barry Gordon Gordy's The Last Dragon, and I'm like, Wow,
(24:25):
it's a black kid that likes karate movies and is
actually going to live to the end of the film.
Which is a novel approach. You know, there were no
heroes that looked like us that made it to the end,
or if we had to read Huckleberry Finn or you know,
(24:47):
all the the slurs that characters that look like us
were called. And so now all of a sudden, when
people like us grow up to tell stories that aren't
trauma based, now there's pushback, you know. And I saw
(25:13):
online the other day that someone said that, you know,
like Ruby Bridges, that was in our lifetime, and there
were people who threw rocks and spad and did all
that to keep her from going to school something that
is innocent. It's just going to school. And now those
(25:35):
same people don't want their grandkids to even read about
this little girl that anyone should be able to empathize with.
And that is a hero more so than you know,
the Wonder Woman's and the superheroes that we throw in
front of kids.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yes, Ruby Bridges was six years old at the time
time old enough to actually live in that critical historical moment.
But six year olds today are too precious to learn
about that. So right, right, make it make sense?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, there was even a and this is the most
ridiculous thing there was some book by you know, a
black figure in history, but more modern, and they banned
that book from the school, and the school is actually
named after that person, So just imagine that, like, we
(26:40):
don't even want you to learn about who the school
is named after.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Well that's why I feel like, you know, you are
really in a very special category, and I think you
know where you are within this genre. You are a pioneer,
and I feel like, you know, you are in an
enviable position right now where you are influencing others because
we've never seen, you know, an illustrated children's book author
(27:09):
like you writing the way that you do and presenting,
you know, this these books in the way that you do.
So it's it's very interesting to see how all of
this will look going forward, because we need way more
Jerry Krafts in the world.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, you know, it's interesting because initially they were talking
about how groundbreaking New Kid was, and I was always complimented,
But at the same time, I'm like, it's just a
black kid going to private school. It shouldn't be groundbreaking.
(27:46):
But I appreciate that fact. But then, you know, I
just did a book that was released earlier this year
with fellow Newberry winning author Kwame Alexander. So now it's
two African American men who have won the Newberry. And
we did a book called J versus K about two
(28:07):
fifth graders who are kind of rivals. One is an
artist based on me as a fifth grader and one
is a writer based on KWAMEA as a fifth grader,
and they both enter their school's annual storytelling contests and
then they become bitter rivals, but then at the end
they have to figure out if it's better for them
(28:29):
to work together or not. And we did like a
twenty city tour back in May and must have seen
like ten thousand kids. It was unbelievable. And this one
is more of a diary of a wimpy kids style book,
so it's not a full color graphic novel, but it
(28:51):
is illustrated text, so a lot of text like a
chapter book, but with a lot of illustrations and cartoons
in there. And that was an amazing experience.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Thanks for being here today, Jerry. And as we wrap up,
how do we find you on social media?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Jerryicraft dot com which is j E R R Y
c R A f T dot com. And then I'm
all over social media as Jerrykraft.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
This is reading the room on the Black Information Network.
I'm Terry McCready
I'm Jerry McCready. Children's book illustrator Jerry Kraft is well
known for his syndicated newspaper comics Rip Mama's Boys, as
well as his popular graphic novels New Kids, School Trip
and Class Act. Jerry is among just a few syndicated
black cartoonists in the nation. He talks about how his
childhood experiences helped him launch a brilliant career in part
(00:21):
two of Reading the Room on the Black Information Network.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
It started way back with a little boy who was
born in Harlem and grew up in Washington Heights and
absolutely hated nothing more than reading books. I always loved
to draw, but reading was just something that never interested me.
(00:49):
I feel like I went from reading Doctor Seuss or
having that read to me by my parents, to reading
some Marvel comics but mainly skipping past the boring part
but get into the fight scenes, to reading almost nothing.
But I was at kids who love to draw, and
(01:09):
I ended up needing to write stories in order for
me to draw up my stories, you know, because I
wanted to do more than just draw pictures of Spider Man,
you know. And then by about seventh grade, I went
to a new school and met up with a few
(01:31):
guys that liked to draw comics as well, my friend
Eric and Winston, and we would start to draw our
own comics. And it was good that I didn't meet
someone who wanted to partner up and write the books
with me, because I think if I had had a
(01:52):
writing partner, I would have never realized that I could
write myself. And then, you know, I'll let you go
piece by piece to guide me through my answers. But
that's kind of where it started. And if you had
ever told me that that kid who hated to read
would grow up to be an author who travels the
(02:12):
world trying to get kids to read, I would have
never never believed you.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
So, you know, I look at your story and part
of it is just a bit introspective, I guess, because
you have said before that, you know, maybe you were
a bit of a fish out of water, one of
a few black students at a predominantly white school. Did
you ever look at art, for example, or drawing was
Did you ever look at that besides being a hobby
(02:38):
a way to kind of escape and just create something
of your own outside of what was actually going on
in reality.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, you know, whenever I do school visits, I say
that the basis behind new Kid is not just being
a fish out of one water, but having always been
a fish out of two waters. Meaning it started in
(03:09):
Washington Heights, where I was, you know, where I grew up,
where I was born, and grew up light skin, straight hair,
small for my age, and all my friends so even
in like you know, more friends were darker skin with
cool braids and curly afros that I could never get
(03:30):
because my hair was straight. You know, they were taller,
you know. In schools, I was always a year younger
than everyone, you know, so I got a lot of,
you know, different things of not really fitting in there,
(03:52):
having girls go oh wow, you know, you're really cute
if only you were a little darker, or you know,
why do you talk like that, you know, or you're
trying to be all this or you know. And so
by the time I went to high school, I always
(04:12):
wanted to go to an art school, and my mom
and dad did not want me to. So I had
taken the test for music and Art and Design in
New York City and they sent me to a school
in Riverdale called Fieldston, which I had never seen anything
like it it looked like what I imagined Harvard to be,
(04:39):
just because I mean there were trees and there was
a campus. And you know, instead of twenty five kids
in my class at Saint Matthew's Lutheran School, now there's
one hundred and ten kids in my ninth grade class
at Fieldston. You know, at Saint Matthew's there was like
(05:03):
one white kid, one Latina, and one kid from India.
And now there's only ten African American kids in my
ninth through twelfth grade class. And then half of those
kids had been there their whole lives, so I didn't
really have much in common with them either. You know,
(05:25):
a lot of them were were, you know, financially in
a whole another bracket than my family, you know. So
we would go to Woolworths or toys Eras and they'd
be going to Fao Schwartz and some of these fancy
toy companies and stuff, and so it was just, you know,
(05:46):
we vacationed differently. It was just very different. And so
I put a lot of that in New Kid, and
the prior to that, in My Mama's Boys comics tip.
It was you know, two teenage boys who hated to read,
(06:07):
and their mom owned the bookstore. So I always kind
of started with myself and then branched out to make
the characters more interesting when I had to.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So your life experiences really informed some of the choices
that you made with your books, as you just mentioned,
and I have to say, you know, we're talking about
a very unique approach that you have taken with your books.
Charming characterizations, the narratives are very interesting. They do not
(06:43):
insult the intelligence of your readers at all, ultimately focusing
on positive outcomes. There are adoring family structures, memorable characters.
And I say that because you know you're talking about
your readers who are children, and these children today are
facing some very complex and very unusual, uh life circumstances
(07:06):
sometimes and we're talking about serious issues, and I know
that you know you have taken steps to address some
of those big feelings, as they say, for children. You
know you've focused on these things head on racism, social
racial exclusion you just mentioned colorism, you know among your peers,
and even diabetes. So how do you encapsulate these groundbreaking
(07:30):
issues into a formula that is actually relatable to children?
What is that process like for you?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So it was it was really funny. I guess I
was in my early twenties and I had grown up
also loving comic strips, and so you the you know,
for those under certain aids, they'll never experience what the
big deal it was getting like the New York Daily
(07:59):
News on Sunday and getting the Sunday funnies, you know.
And then there were a lot of books that collected
those comic strips, and they were anthologies like a Calvin
Hobbs or Farsad or for Better for Worse, and they
were really popular. But there were so few African American
(08:21):
comic strips. It was Curtis and Jumpstart and where I'm
coming from and Luther and Herb and Jamal, but they
didn't they weren't given the same exposure as a lot
of the you know, they're white contemporaries, like their comic strips,
you know, when you talk about the Peanuts or Blondie
(08:42):
or Beetle Bailey that were in thousands of newspapers. So
I wanted to do an anthology of my Mama's Boys
comic strip and I got rejection after rejection after rejection,
and some of them even personal, and that made me. See.
(09:02):
Early on, we're talking like nineteen ninety seven, I gave
up on the concept of ever being published because some
of the rejection letters was so nasty. And so I
published my own book, Mama's Boys's American Sweet Potato Pie.
And I was thinking that I was doing it for
(09:23):
adults like me who like comic strips. And I remember
doing a book festival in New York City and this
guy came up to me with his ten year old
son and he says, hey, you know, can I get
this for my kid? And I hadn't intended it to
be for kids, but I thought of it. I was like, well,
(09:46):
you know, there's no sex, there's no cursing, there's no drugs,
there's no gangs, there's I was like, yeah, yeah, I
think it's safe. And he bought it and he gave
it to his kid, and it was The book fair
was in like a gymnasium, and the kid goes to
the corner of the gym and just read cover the
cover and laughing hysterically, and I was like, oh, shoot, okay.
(10:10):
And then ten minutes later someone else comes up and says, hey,
is this a kid's book. I'm like, yes, it is,
and that's kind of how I backed in the being
a Chodn's book author. And I think that that was
the best way, because if I had intended for my
audience to be kids, I might have tried to lower
(10:33):
the level, you know, lower the vocabulary, lower some of
the concepts and intelligence to try to I don't want
who used to turn dumb it down, but you know
that's that's what I'm saying. So I always took it
(10:53):
where I wanted to bring kids up to the level
of my writing as opposed to lowering the level to
make it more palatable for them. And then I just
challenged them. And I talk about I've done comic ships
back in the day in New York City for American
Diabetes Association. I remember the New York Daily News asking
(11:18):
me to do Mama's Boys comic ships for their aid supplement.
And this is like in ninety eight. Maybe I've done
stuff on teenage pregnancy, American counts for fitness and nutrition.
And then slowly but surely my niche became taking really
(11:39):
difficult topics and making them approachable for people of all ages.
I even did a new kid comic book about the
girl with leukemia one time, and so when it came
time to doing something about the new kid in this
private school, that was easy compared to the other stuff
I had already be done.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
You just talked about that one kid who just ran off,
this avaricious reader, you know, just totally engrossed in your book,
And what a feeling of gratification that must have been
for you. You know, you're a wildly popular author. You
have legions of avid fans eager for your offerings, and
I just, well, this is kind of a two part question,
(12:22):
So I wonder what some of your favorite moments would
be in garnering direct feedback from readers. Is there one
underlying message, some universal communicat that you would hope to share?
That's part one, Part two. I'm wondering for myself if
there's any way that we would ever see in the
vein of Diary of a Whigby Kid with Mama's Boys.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Well, I'll tell you some of the best things. When
I love doing big book festivals, like tomorrow I'm heading
to the National Book Festival in Washington, d c. So
and I've done like American Library Association Annual Convention, and
(13:10):
you know, different things like that and I can already
tell when the teacher comes to me and their eyes
are already watering that we're about to share something. And
I remember one woman said her kid hated to read,
(13:30):
and she gave him a copy of New Kid, and
he literally cried when he finished the book because he
had never seen himself and a book, and he just
felt validated. There was a white kid in Buffalo, New York,
and I say he's white just because when I was
(13:53):
growing up, I was always led to believe that black
stories were only for black kids, that it was up
to you and I. You know, we could watch the
parts of his family in Gilligan's Island and you know,
Brady Bunch and identify with them, but they could never
identify with black characters. So this kid who hated to
(14:17):
read reads my book New Kid, and ends up starting
a book club afterwards. And that was another tear filled teacher,
you know, who came over to share that. And then
the last one off the top of my head was
a woman and this kid who also hated the read
(14:39):
came up to her and said, you know, miss Johnson,
promise me that you will read this book over the
weekend so we could talk about it on Monday and
she's like, oh, wait, hold up, you're giving me reading homework.
And you know, they just really bonded over that book.
(15:01):
So when I get invited to schools that have done
a one book, one school read, where you know, all
the kids read it, all the teachers, the bus driver,
the lunch ladies, like literally everyone in the school reads it.
And then I go and visit and answer questions. Or
(15:22):
I've even done book signings and Kenya and Singapore to see,
you know, signing copies of my book in Chinese and
you know, seeing it in like thirteen different languages is
absolutely something that I never thought that this kid from
(15:43):
Warston Heights, would you know that that would be my story?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
What an epiphty that must be for you to have
that aha moment with the relatability and the connection you
know that you've made and that you're making with these children.
And so this was, you know, something that I was,
you know, trying to make this connection about heated rhetoric
when it comes to literature, and we've been seeing it
(16:10):
over the years, and I know a couple of your
books were subjects of some of this brief controversy. I
know it happened in Texas, one of the independent school districts.
What was that all about? And what were your thoughts
when it was finally resolved? As it pertains to looking at,
you know, the big picture of what we're now facing
in terms of suitable children's literature, And I have to
(16:33):
ask you, you know, before you explain what that was
all about, do you now consider it a slippery slope
or are your books kind of a journey toward opening
substantive dialogue.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well, one of the biggest problems is that there never
is any dialogue. You know. I can tell when I
get an email in the first few lines if someone
is just okay, they had a bad day and they're
(17:10):
going to take it out on me for you know,
a book that they didn't even read or did not understand.
But there's almost no dialogue at all. It's just threats.
You know. I've even gotten a few death threats, which
is ridiculous. I got one that was something like, you know,
(17:39):
you must suffer from some kind of mental illness thinking
that it's your job to indoctrinate an entire generation of kids.
I'm like, indoctrinate towards empathy and kindness, like did you
read the book? And this was October of twenty twenty one,
(18:00):
and I got a DM on Twitter telling me that
there was a woman in Katie, Texas that had challenged
my books and demanded that it got taken out of
the school library. And I was supposed to do a
zoom with the entire school district, so we're talking maybe
(18:23):
twelve hundred kids. So they canceled that visit. They took
my books out the out there school library. But then
I commended school board. They actually took the books home
and read them and after a week they were like,
there is nothing wrong with these books at all, so
(18:48):
we're going to put them back and mister Kraft, if
you would be so kind as to forgive us, and
can we reschedule your presentation? And out of the twelve
hundred families, they gave them an opportunity to opt out
if they wanted. I think four families opted out, and
(19:10):
I did the presentation, and you know, when I I
think one of the things is a lot of people
early on had told me that I was teaching critical
race theory, which I had to google it at the
time because I did not know what that even was.
(19:33):
And you know, there were terms like Marxists and I
mean just stuff that they were just pulling out of
their out in there without having ever read the book
and making up stuff that happened. And so the sad part,
(19:59):
I mean, it worked out in a sense where I
got more notoriety. You know, I got to be on
The Daily Show, I got to be on Don Lemon's
show and Joy Reid's show and NPR. So that was
a positive, but it was also sad because you know,
(20:24):
new Kid is a graphic novel, and that's the other thing.
Some people think that it means it is a novel
filled with graphic content instead of a big old comic book,
so they go in for that. But I won the
Kirkis Prize in twenty nineteen. It was the only graphic
(20:48):
novel to ever win. I won the Newberry Medal, which
is like the Oscars of Cartooning in January twenty twenty.
It was the it's the only graphic novel to ever win.
I won the Credit Scott King Author Award that same day,
so it was it's the first graphic novel to ever win,
(21:11):
the second book in history to win the Newberry and
the Credit Scott King Author Award and the only book
in history, not only black book, the only book ever
to win the Newberry, the Kirkus, and the credit Scott King.
And there was almost no notoriety for that. But as
(21:33):
soon as there's some negative storyline, now all of a sudden,
it's a worldwide thing and I've got the BBC calling,
and you know, so that part was said, I wish
that they had celebrated with me as opposed to just
(21:54):
looking for a news story, you know, a negative new story.
And a lot of people, even our own community, it's like, wow,
there's a black author. Are you telling me that a
black author is the only person in history to win
thows three awards? Like, there's not been that kind of embrace.
(22:15):
What's is said?
Speaker 1 (22:16):
You know, I can help, but you know, wonder you
know why there's this sort of hyper focus on this
level of negativity. It's just a huge political breeding ground
to the point where if you look at, you know,
some of the literature that you know, we were all
reading when we were you know, preteens and teens today
(22:40):
probably would not even pass Mustard. I'm talking about the outsiders.
Are you there? God's it's me, Margaret, you know, because
there's too much talk about menstruation, you know, Caturre the wry,
and so I feel like in that sense, feels a
little bit like we're going backwards in terms of how
much can kids handle? And so with your books that
(23:00):
are really bringing kids in with this high rate of
again you know, relatability, talk about harmless, but yes, raising
the educational level significantly. I don't understand that pushback.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well, I need to edit your one statement. It's not
how much can kids handle? It's how much do they
want white kids to have to handle? And that's just
how it is, because how many books did you have
(23:37):
to read as a kid when they were the people
that look like you are were enslaved or you know,
being targeted during the Civil rights era, or gangs or
everyone that looked like you at nineteen is already a
(24:02):
mom dating a drug dealer. You know. I never saw
myself in a book or even a movie. You know.
The closest I had ever come I was probably twenty
seeing Barry Gordon Gordy's The Last Dragon, and I'm like, Wow,
(24:25):
it's a black kid that likes karate movies and is
actually going to live to the end of the film.
Which is a novel approach. You know, there were no
heroes that looked like us that made it to the end,
or if we had to read Huckleberry Finn or you know,
(24:47):
all the the slurs that characters that look like us
were called. And so now all of a sudden, when
people like us grow up to tell stories that aren't
trauma based, now there's pushback, you know. And I saw
(25:13):
online the other day that someone said that, you know,
like Ruby Bridges, that was in our lifetime, and there
were people who threw rocks and spad and did all
that to keep her from going to school something that
is innocent. It's just going to school. And now those
(25:35):
same people don't want their grandkids to even read about
this little girl that anyone should be able to empathize with.
And that is a hero more so than you know,
the Wonder Woman's and the superheroes that we throw in
front of kids.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yes, Ruby Bridges was six years old at the time
time old enough to actually live in that critical historical moment.
But six year olds today are too precious to learn
about that. So right, right, make it make sense?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, there was even a and this is the most
ridiculous thing there was some book by you know, a
black figure in history, but more modern, and they banned
that book from the school, and the school is actually
named after that person, So just imagine that, like, we
(26:40):
don't even want you to learn about who the school
is named after.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Well that's why I feel like, you know, you are
really in a very special category, and I think you
know where you are within this genre. You are a pioneer,
and I feel like, you know, you are in an
enviable position right now where you are influencing others because
we've never seen, you know, an illustrated children's book author
(27:09):
like you writing the way that you do and presenting,
you know, this these books in the way that you do.
So it's it's very interesting to see how all of
this will look going forward, because we need way more
Jerry Krafts in the world.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, you know, it's interesting because initially they were talking
about how groundbreaking New Kid was, and I was always complimented,
But at the same time, I'm like, it's just a
black kid going to private school. It shouldn't be groundbreaking.
(27:46):
But I appreciate that fact. But then, you know, I
just did a book that was released earlier this year
with fellow Newberry winning author Kwame Alexander. So now it's
two African American men who have won the Newberry. And
we did a book called J versus K about two
(28:07):
fifth graders who are kind of rivals. One is an
artist based on me as a fifth grader and one
is a writer based on KWAMEA as a fifth grader,
and they both enter their school's annual storytelling contests and
then they become bitter rivals, but then at the end
they have to figure out if it's better for them
(28:29):
to work together or not. And we did like a
twenty city tour back in May and must have seen
like ten thousand kids. It was unbelievable. And this one
is more of a diary of a wimpy kids style book,
so it's not a full color graphic novel, but it
(28:51):
is illustrated text, so a lot of text like a
chapter book, but with a lot of illustrations and cartoons
in there. And that was an amazing experience.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Thanks for being here today, Jerry. And as we wrap up,
how do we find you on social media?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Jerryicraft dot com which is j E R R Y
c R A f T dot com. And then I'm
all over social media as Jerrykraft.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
This is reading the room on the Black Information Network.
I'm Terry McCready
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