Jerry Craft

Jerry Craft is a New York Times bestselling cartoonist and illustrator born in Harlem and raised in Washington Heights, New York. He is one of the few syndicated African American cartoonists in the United States, having self-syndicated Mama's Boyz in 1987 before it was picked up by King Features Syndicate in 1995. In 2020, his graphic novel New Kid (HarperCollins/Quill Tree Books, 2019) became the first graphic novel in history to win the Newbery Medal. It also won the Coretta Scott King Author Award and the Kirkus Prize. He is also the author of Class Act and School Trip. New Kid has been acquired by Universal Pictures for adaptation, with LeBron James's Spring Hill Company producing. Craft runs his own publishing company, Mama's Boyz Inc., and travels nationally conducting cartooning workshops in schools, camps, and libraries.