Jack Gantos

Jack Gantos (born July 2, 1951) is an American author of children's books. He is best known for the fictional characters Rotten Ralph and Joey Pigza. Rotten Ralph is a cat who stars in twenty picture books written by Gantos and illustrated by Nicole Rubel from 1976 to 2014. Joey Pigza is a boy with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), featured in five novels from 1998 to 2014.

Gantos won the 2012 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association (ALA), recognizing Dead End in Norvelt as the previous year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". Great Stone Face Award, Children's Librarians of New Hampshire, ALANNA Notable Children's Book, NCSS and CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Riverbank Review Children's Book of Distinction, and New York Public Library "One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing," all 1999, for Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key Iowa Teen Award, Iowa Educational Media Association, Flicker Tale Children's Book Award nomination, North Dakota Library Association, and Sasquatch Award nomination, all 2000, for Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key Newbery Honor, ALANNA, 2001, for Joey Pigza Loses Control California Young Reader Medal, 2002, for Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key Printz Honor, 2003, for Hole in My Life Sibert Honor, 2003, for Hole in My Life National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Creative Writing, m fiction Newbery Medal, 2012, for Dead End In Norvelt

Selected works Picture books Gantos is the author of dozens of published picture books including about twenty illustrated by Nicole Rubel. Rotten Ralph was the first published book for both creators and the first of about ten in the Rotten Ralph series as of 2012.

Rotten Ralph series by Gantos and Rubel Rotten Ralph (Houghton Mifflin, 1976, )introducing the "very, very, nasty cat" Three Strikes for Rotten Ralph (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, )the latest of about ten