Jarrett Krosoczka, author of Lunch lady and the cyborg substitute (August 17-28)

Please welcome Jarrett J Krosoczka, author of Lunch lady and the cyborg substitute. Jarrett will be chatting on LibraryThing until August 28th.

Hi Jarrett;

The title of this thread let me follow the link to your book - that looks quite intriguing!

Was it a particular person that gave you the idea for Lunch Lady?

Hey there! Yes, it was my old elementary school lunch lady. I returned to my old elementary school in 2001 in support of my 1st book (Good Night, Monkey Boy). While I was there, I ran into our old lunch lady, Jeannie. Everyone loved Jeannie, but I had no expectations she would have any idea who I was. She looked me up and down for the minute, and then said “Stephen Krosoczka?” So first of all I was amazed that she even knew that I was a Krosoczka, and amazed even more because she thought I was my Uncle Stephen, who was at that school a good 20 years before I was! We started talking and she mentioned her grandkids, and I was just suddenly shocked that she had a life outside of the cafeteria.

So I started writing about what a lunch lady would do with her spare time...

And I should mention that my old lunch ladies came to the launch of my new book series in my hometown!
http://thejjkblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/scenes-from-worcester-public-library.html

:-)

I'll sure have a look at your book(s) then.

I remember the strange feeling when I found out that teachers had a life outside the school building. Not that I thought they didn't - I just never had thought about it.

So, did drawing come easy to you? Also drawing whole stories?

> that my old lunch ladies came to the launch

cool

Drawing did come easy to me as a kid, but in art college learning how to paint didn't. the Lunch Lady series is drawn with ink and brush and colored digitally, but all of my previous picture books are painted.

Hi Jarrett -- Jeremy from Atlanta. I've been most disappointed with the library where I work here in Gwinnett - we haven't added Lunch Lady to our collection!!! We have an extensive graphic novel collection, so I was surprised to see we didn't have it. I'll have to look at B&N to find a copy!

From an illustration point of view, what were some of the challenges of pacing/illustrating a graphic novel for kids versus working on a 32 page picture book?

Looking forward to the Decatur Book Festival -- we'll look for you there!

Hey Jeremy -- We can't wait to see you in Decatur!

As for your library, I hope you asked for the LL books. Or started a petition or a protest or something. ;)

At first I was intimidated by jumping into the length of the GN format. In the end, the creative process isn't too different from that of a picture book. In picture books, I draw 32 little rectangles and lay out the book. With the GNs, I make 96 little rectangles and layout the book. In a way it is actually more freeing because I can include so many more moments. With the Punk Farm books, I am always wanting to put more in, but my editor reels me in b/c we are dealing with a 32 page picture book.

I've yet to come to a situation with the Lunch Lady books where I am asking myself, "How am I going to fill the pages?" I'm asking myself, "What will I need to cut out to fit this story into the 96 pages."

Haven't had a chance to take a look at the Lunch Lady books yet, but I LOVE reading Punk Farm outloud!! I'm a wanna-be children's librarian who sometimes gets to do storytime and it is so much fun to be noisy with that book and a room full of preschoolers. I especially like reading it then playing the song "Everybody Play Air Guitar" by Joe McDermott. Thanks for some great storytimes!!

Cool! I've never heard of that song, I'll have to check it out.

So glad you enjoy reading Punk Farm out loud. I have a lot of fun with that book and the sequel, Punk Farm on Tour. I once read the books to a group of 1,000 1-3 rd graders. It was nuts! Lots of opportunity for kids to find their inner-rock star.

Hi Jarrett ... As a Children's/Young Adult Librarian and a story time diva .... I must agree punk farm is an awesome storytime book ... and it totally works with any age ... I love to read it ... his summer, I used puppets and had elementary age kids act it out. The best is when the Mom's and Dad's laugh at it! Can you describe where you get your artistic and literaryr inspiration from ? Is it all childhood memories or what?

Thanks,
Christy

A Story Time Diva! Wow! That's so cool that you used puppets to act out PF. Perhaps I should make a download where you could put the faces on paperbags and make PF puppets. Hmmm.... I've been meaning to add activity kits to my website for a while now. It's hard to find the time!

Usually my ideas come from something in reality triggering my imagination. With PF, I had been wanting to write a story about a rock star, but it wasn't working. Then I volunteered a week at this camp I used to work at and our 5 campers started lip-syncing rock songs throughout the week. Their band suffered the same fate as many bands. The guitarist became more popular, the drummer had issues . . . And that's when it hit me—a band is way more funny than a singular rock star. I also had this other old story about farm animals that wasn't working. And that's when I realized the book should be about a band that is made up of farm animals. (To see a full visual and more detailed account, visit http://studiojjk.com/makingofpunkfarm.html)

But yes, usually one dose of reality with lots more doses of imagination. Of course all in some way connected to the quirky kid I have living inside of me.

JJK

Hi Jarrett,

Love your work. I haven't had a chance to check out Lunch Lady yet but I'll have to head out to the bookstore soon. I understand Lunch Lady is going to become a regular series. Have you planned out how many books you will include or are you going to play it by ear? Also, any new picture books in the works or will you be concentrating for a while on graphic novels.

Keep up the great work,
Cat

Hi Jarrett,

First, some adoration: We have long loved Punk Farm at our house. And I just picked up both Lunch Lady books last week. We read them through once each before we went on a family road trip. In the car, both of my older kids (ages 5 and 7) were reading Lunch Lady. My seven-year-old daughter can read them. My five-year-old son was "reading" them. And he is smitten with Lunch Lady. From the back seat, all the way up north, we heard, "Sonic BOOM!" "French fries? Gravy? French Fries? Gravy?" "Hairnet nets!" It was fabulous. And later, to himself, "I wonder if my Lunch Lady will be a superhero..." (He's starting Kindergarten soon.)

Next, a question: I write picture books also (unpublished as of yet) but I'm not an illustrator, so the author/illustrator process is interesting to me. Did you have a clear idea of the storyline when you started? Do you write out the text seperate from the illustrations? Or do the images come first and you fill in text as you go?

Also, I'm curious about your process for creating all the great "tidbits" in Lunch Lady. Did you at some point sit down and separately brainstorm some likely Lunch Lady superhero devices (spork phone, chicken nugget bombs)?

Thanks!

Megan.

Thanks Cat!

I don't see an end on the horizon. This is the kind of series that could go on and on. There isn't an over arching story of the entire series, each book is a stand alone and very episodic. However, I do drop hints in each book about events that may take place in the following book or the one after, etc. So there is a continuity to the whole thing.

JJK

Hi Megan,

Very cool! I'm so happy to hear that your family enjoyed reading the books as much as I enjoyed writing them!

For me words and pictures develop at the same time. I make a sketch, I write some notes, etc and that goes back and forth until I have a more substantial something to show my editor. Ultimately, I do write the text separate form the illustrations. However, this usually comes after I've put together pages of sketches and words. The manuscript helps me to refine the words I'm using and a copy-editor needs to review the book in this format.

As for all the LL tidbits, I needed to develop the rules of the world before I wrote LL#1. So in that process, I developed a ton of gadgets. Too many to even use in the first two books. So I do have pages upon pages of gadgets that I will be using in future books.

JJK

Thanks for the insight, Jarrett.

Writer friends of mine who write fantasy talk about "the rules" and how you get to create whatever rules you want for your fantasy world--but then you must stick to them.

I have to admit, I had never thought about that concept when it came to comic books or graphic novels.

Thanks again. Looking forward to more Lunch Lady adventures!

We will hope to see you when you come to Minneapolis.

Megan.

Yes, "the rules" are very important.

Hopefully I will meet you out in Minneapolis!

JJK

I'm a librarian in Queens and I love Baghead! And I enjoy all of you Lunch Lady graphics! keep up the good work!