One day in second grade I dressed up in my cowboy outfit, complete with golden cap pistols and spurs on my boots. I went to school that way. It was not Halloween. When the teacher asked me if I "would like to do something for the class," I got up and sang "I Have the Spurs that Jingle Jangle Jingle." Shortly thereafter Jerry ceased to be a singing cowboy and decided to become a baseball player, preferably shortstop for the New York Yankees. He only hit two home runs in his career in Little League, junior high and high school, but had no equal when it came to standing at shortstop and chattering to the pitcher. Unfortunately, when he stood at the plate, so many balls were hummed past him for strikes that he decided to let somebody else become shortstop for the Yankees.

It was about this time that Jerry's high school football team won a heart-stopping game against one of the best teams in the country. While the rest of the town was celebrating, Jerry went home and wrote a poem about the game. A few days later the poem was published in the local newspaper, and suddenly Jerry had something new to become: a writer. Little did he know that twenty-five years would pass before a book of his would be published. In the years after college he wrote four novels, but nobody wanted them. They were adult novels. So was number five, or so Jerry thought. However, because it was about a thirteen-year-old boy, adult book publishers didn't even want to see it. But children's publishers did - and that's how, by accident, Jerry became an author of books for children.

For Orchard Books, Jerry has written The Mighty Crashman, Stargirl and Milkweed. Stargirl is as magical and mysterious as her own name whilst 'Stop Thief' is the name of a street orphan trying to survive in the Ghettos of Nazi-occupied Warsaw in Milkweed. This latest novel is both gripping and moving.

Sometimes I'm asked if I do research for my stories. The answer is yes and no. No, in the sense that I seldom plow through books at the library to gather material. Yes, in the sense that the first fifteen years of my life turned out to be one big research project. I thought I was simply growing up in Norristown, Pennsylvania; looking back now I can see that I was also gathering material that would one day find its way into my books.

John Ribble's blazing fastball. Dovey Wilmouth, so beautiful a fleet of boys pedalled past her house ten times a day. Mrs Seeton's whistle calling her kids in to dinner. The day my black snake disappeared. The creek, the tracks, the dump, the red hills. My days did not pass through, but stayed, filling the shelves of my memory. They became the library where today I do my research.

I also get material from my own children. Along the way I married another children's writer, Eileen, and from our six kids have come a number of stories. Jeffrey and Molly, who are always fighting, have been especially helpful.

Jerry's first book for children was published when he was 41 years old. He still lives in Pennsylvania with his Stargirl, Eileen Spinelli.

"This is going to be huge and deserves to be." - The Guardian on Stargirl

"This is a story which, once read is not easily forgotten." - Time Out on Stargirl

"Believe the hype about this novel - an unforgettable book." - The Bookseller on Stargirl

"I wondered if there was room for another book about the Holocaust and then I read Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, an extraordinarily powerful and poignant novel...   Although the focus is firmly on a well-known piece of history, the story, written in simple yet at times poetic language, is about people, about caring and about life itself." - The Bookseller on Milkweed

Award-Winning Jerry Spinelli
WH Smith Children's Book of the Year - Shortlisted
Dyfed Schools Children's Book of the Year - Shortlisted
British Book Awards Cover Design of the Year - Shortlisted

Bibliography

The Mighty Crashman Milkweed Stargirl

Copyright © 2004: The Watts Publishing Group.