Jack Gantos

Jack Gantos’s Dead End in Norvelt—“a brilliant book, full of history, mystery, and laughs,” wrote Dave Barry—won the Newberry Medal in 2012.

Gantos has written more than forty books for kids, including the Rotten Ralphseries, the Jack Henry stories and the Joey Pigza novels. “In the books that I write, I try to have the young characters figure out the world around them, figure out the world within themselves, and try to live lives that fulfill some clear goals,” he has said. “Literature maps the human heart, and if young people know themselves, they will know what decisions to make.”