Jerry Craft will tell you himself he was never much of a reader. More a “draw-er”, is how he described himself as he delivered the Finnegan Lecture on March 6 2025, part of the Thought Leadership Series at Lesley University. “I was always that kid that drew on everything, he explained, in a virtual event. “I drew on my homework. I drew on my notebook. I drew on my classmate Michelle Henley's desk, and she absolutely hated it. But now that I'm famous, she tells everyone how much she loved it, but she really didn't.”
Craft is famous because he’s the creator of New Kid, the first graphic novel to win the Newbury Medal. It also won the Corretta Scott King Author Award, and the Kirkus Prize. Craft is also one of the few Black syndicated cartoonists in the nation, having created Mama’s Boyz, the story of a single mother, Pauline Porter, and her two young sons.
“I needed stories, he said. “I didn't consider myself a writer was because if there was one thing I absolutely hated to do when I was a kid, it was reading books.” Craft insists he has ‘no idea’ how he became an author, let alone one who goes around the globe and encourages children to read, despite laying out the steps that got him here. He wanted to read comics, and his teachers wanted him to read books he didn’t want to read. “You know, these books, I never saw myself in them at all.”
But he needed stories. So, a young Jerry Craft made a plan to tackle an intimidating book that was 400 pages long. He realized he could read 20 pages in the morning, and 20 at night. Then he realized he could finish the book. Then he realized he actually liked the book.
Then he began creating his own comic strips, eventually became syndicated, and, after a flurry of rejections, self-published books.
“So now I go from a kid who hated to read to a self-published author,” said Craft.
Craft carried his determination and love of drawing and storytelling forward, founding his own publishing company to help others publish, and working to help others love to read. Those others include his own children, Jaylen and Aren. Along with their father, Aren and Jaylen co-wrote the book “The Offenders: Saving the World While Serving Detention!” Arlen died in 2024, at the age of 24.
Jerry Craft, in considering how he went from a kid who didn’t like to read to a man who eventually held the #1 and #2 spots on the New York Times bestselling books list, who made a poster for American Library Association, who won the Kirkus Prize, the Newbury Medal, and more, told the Lesley University audience he should have done one thing a little differently: Dream Bigger. “I realized my dreams weren’t big and bold enough. I never dreamed of being a #1 New York Times selling author, or that one day I would travel the world because my books would be in languages like Lithuanian, Albanian, Arabic, Romanian, Taiwanese, Korean, Spanish, Greek, German…Unbelievable!”
You never know who’s in the room for a virtual event. As Craft stepped off-camera for a moment, Author, Speaker, Producer and Poet Kwame Alexander entered from screen right, holding his Emmy, and expressing shock that 5,000 people were watching. He held up a copy of Craft’s new book J vs. K, and excitedly announced the pair had just recorded the audiobook. “I was minding my own business and [Craft] dragged me over here,” laughed Alexander, joining the conversation.
Asked for advice, Craft said:
“Just read everything you can get your hands on.”