Ishara Interviews Jerry Craft: From Reluctant Reader to Award-Winning Author

Can someone who didn't enjoy reading as a child grow up to become one of today's most celebrated authors?

In this inspiring episode of Ishara's Reading Podcast, recorded at the Library of Congress National Book Festival, Ishara interviews Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author and illustrator Jerry Craft.

Jerry shares his remarkable journey from a child who rarely picked up a book to an internationally acclaimed author whose stories have inspired millions of young readers.

Together, they discuss:
📚 His path to becoming an author and illustrator
🏆 What it feels like to receive some of children's literature's highest honors
🤝 His friendship and creative connection with fellow author Kwame Alexander
💡 Why representation and storytelling matter
✨ How reading can spark imagination, confidence, and creativity in every child

Jerry's message is one every young reader, and every reluctant reader, needs to hear: your story matters, and it's never too late to discover the joy of books.

You can watch this episode on my YouTube Channel.

Recorded live at the Library of Congress National Book Festival.

Don't forget to Like, Comment, and Subscribe for more inspiring conversations with bestselling authors, illustrators, scientists, and leaders from around the world.

#JerryCraft #LibraryOfCongress #NationalBookFestival #IsharasReadingPodcast #KidsBooks #GraphicNovels #Reading #Literacy #YouthJournalist #AwardWinningAuthor #Books #FutureAuthors

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, welcome to the Ishara's Reading Podcast, and I'm Ishara. Today we are with the author of the book J versus K. When you're in school, do you have do you have that one kid who's always like, I don't know, trying to what up you get a better grade, look like they're smarter than you? That would be what some would call a rival, a verse a nemesis. Some a rivalry. But try flipping the aspect of it. Try turning your bitterest rival into your best friend. Well, we take a look at that in this book, J vs. Gay. J versus K, because two rival offers combine forces in this book. And right now we are talking to the Jay in J versus Kay. Welcome, Mr. Jerry Kraft.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Well, thank you. All right, I'm all ready for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Have you been to the National Book Festival before?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yes, I came in, I think it was 2014, which was like 11 years ago, and I had illustrated a book for scholastic called The Zero Degree Zombie Zone. And that was like the first big event I had ever done. And I met people like Randon Telgemeyer and Gene Yang and Jeff Smith. And I had never seen this many people excited about reading or books, and I was completely blown away. And I was like, I think I want to do this for a living.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, so this is the one that, and I always wanted to come back. So this is my second time.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

What was your favorite experience from last year compared to this year? And are there any offers you want to recommend to our listeners at home? Or one that you're just looking forward to yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

So one of the good things is that I may do two or three of these a year, like ALA, which is American Library Association, or NCTE, and they kind of feel like family reunions because I get to meet my buddies. Yeah, not so not so much Kwame Alexander, but people who I like. You know. You know, I might see Jackie Woodson or Jason Reynolds. I'm hanging out now with Raul III and Kwame Mbalia, uh Tiffany Jackson, I saw last night. Um R.L. Stein, who did the Goosebump series, who's like legendary. I got to have dinner with him last night. Um so there's so I like these things because I get to be as much of a fan, like I give as much as I get back. So I'll see someone like R.L. Stein, and I'm like, you know, doing this, and then someone will come to me and do this to me. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. So it's all like one big circle.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah. Why not Kwame?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Why not Kwame? You know, I've been asking myself that for years. Why not Kwame? You know, he does his best. You know, it's funny because um It's funny with rivalries.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yeah, because we want to be friends, but at one point Yeah, no, we we really are.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Um, he won the new well, I knew him. I met him like in 2009, and we were both self-published authors. And we met in the bookstore and we were talking about how hard it was and you know how difficult it was trying to get published. And then we stayed in contact, and then in 2015, he won the Newberry for his book, The Crossover. I'm like, wow, I know that guy, you know, but I wasn't a reader as a kid. Like I didn't do what you did. You know, I didn't like to read as a kid, so I didn't I didn't realize how big a deal the Newberry was. I was like, oh, he won that award, that's nice. And then I would see him, and all of a sudden, you know, his career just was like skyrocketing. Right. And then um I won it in 2020. Congrats! Thank you. And then I really researched it, and I was only the fifth African-American author to ever win out of like 102 years.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

What?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, it was so Kwame for The Crossover, Virginia Hamilton, Mildred Taylor, and Christopher Paul Curtis for Bud Nut Buddy. And so I was like, wow, this is a really big deal. And then I also won the Curtis Scott King uh Author Award, and it was only the second book ever to do that, and so I joined Christopher Paul Curtis and Bud Nut Buddy, and then prior to that I had won the Kirkis Prize. So it's the New Kid is the only book to ever win all those three awards, so then my career took off like so I I followed Kwame and I got to watch him.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

So it's like Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, exactly. Uh, I would say about three years ago, um, I had an idea for a book about two rivals that kind of become friends.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

And the person you fought of first fought Kwame.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

No, I thought about five or six other people who were better. No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

What?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

I'm kidding. He um he he was first, and and I pitched the idea to him. I said, hey, I got this idea, and it's a young artist like me and author like you, and we wanted to do this thing together, and we become and he was like, no, not interested. Wow, okay, and then another year goes by, and I'm still thinking about it, thinking about it. And I said, Hey man, you know that book, you know, and uh what do you think? And he was like, No. No, and I was like, oh okay, and then I think I might have tried one more time. He also said no. So finally I said, I know this is a good idea. So I wrote the first chapter and I called him up, and I read the first chapter, and he claims I hung up the phone. I didn't think you I didn't think I was that bad, but I read it and I said, now you write the second chapter, and I hung up the phone because I knew that he would accept the challenge because he doesn't want me to outdo him. Oh and that's where the rivalry part comes in.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

That explains the story, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

And then so if you even see the book cover, you know, his name is first, but then I cross it off and put my name first and wrote his under.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Oh. And that's where that came from.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, that's where that came from. And then uh on the cover blurb, he wrote the cover blurb, which you don't normally blurb your own books, but it says, I don't normally do cover blurbs, but this is by far Jerry Kraft's greatest work. I wonder why. Kwame Alexander, phenomenal writer. And then we wrote each other's uh very insultant biographies in the back of the book. So you see, I drew like devil ears on his falter picture, and he'd do a mustache, then he'd turn it around so they can see. So like turn. Yeah, so we we basically ruined each other's photographs and we wrote each other's, you know. So mine starts with, what can you say about Kwame Alexander that can't be summed up in one word? Overrated.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Sure, he was the newberry.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Yeah. So then, you know, and then he insults me. So we we actually had a lot of fun. So this is, you know, heavily illustrated, but a chapter book, so more of a wimpy kid style book. And we went on a tour. We did maybe, I think it was like 16 cities in 20 days. We had a a bus that um had this on the side, had the characters, and we went all the way from Florida to California. So we were on the road together for three weeks, and then I realized that those three weeks that I spent with him were some of the longest, most miserable days of my life. But the book is good.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

I thought I thought you were gonna say the opposite of miserable.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

I wish I could, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Um, speaking of self-publishing, I'm in the middle of writing my own book called Immune Heroes. It's about the immune system. When I was younger, I was fascinated by the immune system. Because both of my parents are.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

When you were younger, how much younger are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Uh four years. Oh, wow. Okay. Six.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Okay, but now that you're old, you can Okay, I got it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

I was fascinated about the immune system, and I had an idea. What if I write a story, a graphic novel, because I didn't want it to be I want it to be comic themed-ish, right? But I wanted it to have chapters, because infection, when you get sick, when you and when your body needs to repair itself, it has steps, it has chapters, it has everything. So what I went through my head is like, what is that kind of comic book? And then I found a book type called graphic novels. Right. And that is the kind of book I decided I wanted to do. But there was one problem. Right. I didn't want someone to illustrate my book.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So I wanted to illustrate it and write it myself.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

So my mom.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

So you're an author and an illustrator.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

My mom gave me a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

You have to learn how to draw first. So I taught myself.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

That helps nice.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

What advice would you give to people like me and people in the audience about how do you self-publish and it's not as miserable and ridiculously hard as you describe it?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

No, that part is not as hard. It was the hanging out with Kwame part that was hard.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

But this part, um, you know, the the one thing is you have to have fun with it because I draw, I work on this like every night, you know, from like six, seven in the afternoon until about one thirty in the morning, because I was always a night owl. So I love to draw. Um and um I you have to not be so hard on yourself because a lot of kids, you do one little line and then you're like, oh, I messed up, and you start erasing. You gotta finish it.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

And then you can always redraw it.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Finish what you start. That's one of the things we always have to do.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

That includes books, which I love.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yep. Right. And so you can always go back and fix it and do whatever, but so many times you have to actually learn from it. And you're like, oh, well, why does this look different? Or oh, you know what, I can do this. Maybe I did the arms too long or too short. And you can go back and fix it.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

I think I've done that.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

So it's not even in this book, we talk about it's not about the writing and the drawing as much as it is the rewriting and the redrawing. And then after a while, you get to a point where you can just kind of you know, you get it so quickly. You you do it so much that it just becomes second nature.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

And you are Team J, by the way. I'm just saying. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Thank you for being on the Shars Reading Podcast, Mr. Jerry.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Well, thank you. It was a pleasure. Much better than hanging out with you know who.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Thank you for listening to the Shars Reading podcast. Don't forget to like, review, and smash that subscribe button. Bye bye.