Bio
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| That shirt, that hair, that light fixture, that wallpaper! That was me in the 1970’s.
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Here I sit at age 47 — my birthday is 2/1/61 for you trivia buffs at home — and one of life’s surprises is that I never grew up. At least, not in the way I imagined I would. I’m bigger and older and (a little) fatter, sure. Now I must carefully trim the hair that grows out of my nose and ears (no one had warned me about that!). But I still like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I find that I still care — deeply, foolishly, insanely — about the score of professional baseball games. I mean to say: I care the same way that I cared when I was ten years old. I used to think that we were supposed to “grow out” of those childish things, discard our younger selves like an old pair of jeans. But now I know that people don’t grow that way. I’m still that kid. I am the youngest of seven children. I was born during a snowstorm. I grew up in Wantagh, Long Island. I had four older brothers, two older sisters, and a perfectly satisfactory pair of parents whom I called “Mom” and “Dad.” When I was quite young, with everyone else off to school, I used to draw pictures and make homemade comic books that I sold to friends and neighbors. Was I dreaming of becoming an author? No, absolutely not. I fully intended to play baseball for the New York Mets. But I did enjoy making up stories, creating my own little worlds. In a way, I had my own publishing company, complete with door-to-door product distribution. When you think about it, I pretty much do the same thing today. I’m still making up stories. It’s my job.
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| Here’s all seven kids in my family: Neal, Bill, Barbara, Al, John, Jean, and me, as my mother still says, “the baby.”
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Those childhood years were important to me. And I bet they are pretty important to you, too. I don’t think of children as unfinished products, like minor league baseball players hoping to get to the “big leagues” of adulthood. Somehow we’re all the same, young and old alike; or, I guess, we’re just not nearly as different as some folks pretend. I still remember being a kid. I still feel those feelings. And it’s not like I’m looking back on thirty, forty years and watching what happened to some other person. That was me, the same “me” that I am today. When I write books for children, I often call upon those childhood memories, those feelings, that person whom I was. And what I discover is that he’s always there, whispering in my ear, that ten-year-old kid. Still me.
Anyway, the years rolled by and I went to college in Oneonta, New York. I graduated in 1983. I worked as a waiter for a year, then was hired as a copywriter for Scholastic publishers in New York. I worked on the SeeSaw Book Club, writing blurbs about literally thousands of children’s books. It was during this time when I first “met” authors (through their books) such as James Marshall, Arnold Lobel, Maurice Sendak, Bernard Waber, Eric Carle, Joanna Cole, William Steig, and many more. This experience inspired me to write books of my own. My first picture book was called MAXX TRAX: Avalanche Rescue, published 1986, and no longer in print. It was about super-powered trucks. But it was also about being the youngest, the smallest, the one who wasn’t included in the “big kid” games. You see, I knew those feelings from my own life. For this book, I gave those feelings to a truck named “Little Brother.”
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| Here’s a sample of my early work. Notice that I wrote the numbers backwards, and taped the book on the wrong side. I guess I’m just a lefty from Long Island after all!
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Since then, I have been fortunate enough to publish a variety books, ranging from movie adaptations to Hello Readers, nonfiction books about sports and animals, even a book for teachers. I have written under various pen names, including Mitzy Kafka, James Patrick, and Izzy Bonkers. I have even been a ghost writer for other people who were too busy to write their own books!
I’m probably best known for writing the “Jigsaw Jones” mystery series. But I’ve been busy with a number of other books. Six Innings came out in March, 2008, and I’m proud of it. It’s being published by Feiwel & Friends, in hardcover, and the whole process has been a great experience for me. Also coming out soon, September ‘08, will be a new hardcover with Scholastic, Along Came Spider, that’s set in a 5th-grade classroom. Like Six Innings, it deals with friendship under duress. And, hey, isn’t it always? In the Spring of ’09, I have a hardcover picture book coming out called Mighty Casey, also with Feiwel & Friends; it’s a twist on the classic poem, “Casey At the Bat,” featuring the hilarious artwork of Matthew Cordell.
I’m currently finishing a revision of a book that I’ve extremely excited about, Bystander, which deals with bullying in a Middle School. Hopefully readers will find it tense and exciting and illuminating. Doing the research for this book was an amazing experience. And then there’s A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade, another picture book, due sometime in 2010. The illustrations will be by Greg Ruth and he is a big-time talent. I can’t wait for the artwork to arrive!
In the meantime, I live in Delmar, New York (near Albany), with my wife, Lisa, and three children: Nicholas, Gavin, and Maggie. We have two cats and a golden doodle named Daisy. And that, dear readers, is entirely far too much about me!