Jack Gantos
Award-Winning Children and Young Adult Author


Jack Gantos has written books for people of all ages, from picture books and middle-grade fiction to novels for young adults and adults.His publications can take a reader from “cradle to grave”. He has been honored with every major award in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. His works include Dead End in Norvett, which recently won the Newbery Award, considered the most prestigious prize in children’s literature, Joey Pigza Loses Control, a Newbery Honor book, Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, a National Book Award Finalist, and Hole in My Life, a memoir that won the Michael L. Printz and Robert F. Sibert honors.

 

His first published picture book, Rotten Ralph, was a success and started his writing career. He continued to write children’s books and began to teach courses in children’s book writing and children’s literature. From 1978 – 1996, Jack was a tenured professor at Emerson College, where he developed the master’s degree program in children’s book writing. From 1996 to 1998 he taught at Vermont College and designed the MFA program for children’s book writers. He now devotes his time to writing books and educational speaking.

 

Mr. Gantos is known nationally for his educational creative writing and literature presentations to students and teachers. He is an extremely popular conference speaker, university lecturer, and in-service provider; traveling all over the world to promote literature and entertain audiences.

 

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Hardcover eBook
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Rotten Ralph’s owner, Sarah, is fed up with her red rascal’s behavior. Ralph is tired of Sarah trying to change him. He misses his cat family, which never made him alter a thing about himself.


Hardcover eBook
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The fifth and final book in the groundbreaking Joey Pigza series brings the beloved chronicle of this wired, wacky, and wonderful boy to a crescendo of chaos and craziness, as everything goes topsy-turvy for Joey just as he starts to get his feet on the ground.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This rocket-paced follow-up to the Newbery Medal–winning novel Dead End in Norvelt opens deep in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis. But instead of Russian warheads, other kinds of trouble are raining down on young Jack Gantos and his utopian town of Norvelt in western Pennsylvania.


Hardcover Paperback eBook DigitalAudio
Square Fish

Dead End in Norvelt is the winner of the 2012 Newbery Medal for the year’s best contribution to children’s literature and the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction!


Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Before he tries out for the new Fighting Squirrels baseball team, Rotten Ralph is sure he is going to be a superstar. Never mind that he doesn’t have any skills and doesn’t want to practice.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

Just when Joey Pigza’s wired world finally seems to be under control, his good-for-nothing dad pops back into his life. This time, though, Carter Pigza is a new man – literally.


Paperback eBook
Square Fish

On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with her mother.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

As the Henry family sets sail for a new life on Cape Hatteras, fourth-grader Jack is struggling to chart a course between his parents’ contradictory advice on making friends and influencing people.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

Are they flirting or fighting? This is Joey Pigza's question when the fireworks suddenly start to explode between his long-separated mom and dad, whom he's never really had a chance to see together.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

When Joey Pigza meets his dad for the first time in years, he meets a grown-up version of his old out-of-control self. Carter Pigza is as wired as Joey used to be -- before his stint in special ed, and before he got his new meds.


Paperback eBook
Square Fish

According to his new motto—A WRITER’S JOB IS TO TURN HIS WORST EXPERIENCES INTO MONEY—Jack Gantos’s alter ego Jack Henry is going to be filty rich even before he gets out of junior high, for his life is filled with the worst experiences imaginable.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Jack on the TracksFour Seasons of Fifth Grade
Square Fish

In Jack on the Tracks, fifth-grader Jack Henry is hoping for fresh adventure when he moves to a new home in Miami with his family, but he can’t escape his old worrying ways. He worries about being fascinated with all things gross and disgusting.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

Joey Pigza's got heart, he's got a mom who loves him, and he's got "dud meds," which is what he calls the Ritalin pills that are supposed to even out his wild mood swings.


Paperback eBook
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sixteen-year-old Walker has discovered something potentially scandalous—two of his female classmates are having an affair. It is a secret he has no problem keeping to himself . . . until it comes to protecting his own reputation.


Paperback eBook
Jack’s New PowerStories from a Caribbean Year
Square Fish

Jack Henry has moved to the island of Barbados with his offbeat family and his secret diary. But still he can’t escape his penchant for wacky misadventure. Because of a headless chicken, he gets a violent case of blood poisoning.


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Heads of TailsStories from the Sixth Grade
Square Fish

Jack’s life is a crazy roller-coaster ride. At his fifth school in six years, he has a crackpot teacher who won’t give him a break about his lousy handwriting and a secret crush who wants to be a policewoman.


Hardcover
Best In Show For Rotten RalphA Rotten Ralph Rotten Reader
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The cat show is coming to town and Rotten Ralph is hungry for glory – and desperate to defeat his perfect cousin Percy, whatever it takes. According to Sarah, Ralph has to stop being a lazy scoundrel and follow her regimen to achieve poise and polish.


Hardcover
Rotten Ralph Feels RottenA Rotten Ralph Rotten Reader
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

When Sarah serves up a healthy, home-cooked meal chock-full of fruits and vegetables, Rotten Ralph turns up his nose and refuses to eat. With those overflowing, back-alley trash cans in mind, he has more exciting dinner plans on his menu. Garbage for dinner?


Hardcover Paperback eBook
Square Fish

Sarah is excited about her school project on ancient Egypt. She would like Ralph’s help. But Ralph’s idea of helping out is no help at all. According to Sarah, the ancient Egyptians believed cats were wise and had special powers.


Hardcover Paperback
Square Fish

When the carnival comes to town, the world’s favorite fractious feline discovers the hilariously wrong way to victory before he gets it right.



School Visits Presentation:

• Grades K-3: Interactive demonstration about the development of a picture book and the literary elements on (of) story-boarding
• Grades 4-6: How to Journal: learn how to map out and brainstorm ideas, work on character development, and incorporate plot, climax, and denouement to create a story
• Grades 7 up: Creative writing workshop and discussion about the development of a writer










Praise for Dead End in Norvelt!

“Nobody can tell a story like Jack Gantos can. And this is a story like no other. It’s funny. It’s thoughtful. It’s history. It’s weird. But you don’t need me to attempt to describe it. Get in there and start reading Gantos.”>
—Jon Scieszka, founder of guysread.com and author of the Spaceheadz series

“This is a brilliant book, full of history, mystery, and laughs. It reminded me of my small-town childhood, although my small town was never as delightfully weird as Norvelt.”
—Dave Barry

“A bit of autobiography works its way into all of Gantos’s work, but he one-ups himself in this wildly entertaining meld of truth and fiction by naming the main character… Jack Gantos.”
Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“…there’s more than laugh-out-loud gothic comedy here. This is a richly layered semi-autobiographical tale, an ode to a time and place, to history and the power of reading.”
Horn Book Magazine, Starred Review

“Gantos, as always, deliver bushels of food for thought and plenty of outright guffaws…"
Booklist

“A fast-paced and witty read.”
School Library Journal

“…a more quietly (but still absurdly) funny and insightful account of a kid’s growth, kin to Gantos’ Jack stories, that will stealthily hook even resistant readers into the lure of history.”
—BCCB

“This winning novel, both humorous and heartwarming, takes place during the summer of 1962, when narrator Jack Gantos turns 12 and spends most of his days grounded. Jack’s main ‘get out of jail free card,’ and one of the novel’s most charming characters, is Miss Volker. The blossoming of their friendship coincides with the blooming of Jack’s character.”
—Shelf Awareness Pro