Jon Scieszka

Jon Scieszka ( : born September 8, 1954 ) is an American children's writer, best known for his picture books created with the illustrator Lane Smith.

He is also a nationally recognized reading advocate, and the founder of Guys Read – a web-based literacy program for boys whose mission is "to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers."

Scieszka (Ścieszka, ) was born in Flint, Michigan in 1954, the second oldest among six sons of Shirley Scieszka, and Louis Scieszka, a former elementary school principal.

He attended Culver Military Academy in Indiana for high school, Albion College in Michigan where he studied English and pre-med.

for his B.A., and Columbia University for a Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing.

Scieszka currently lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with his wife, an interior designer.

His children live in the neighborhood as well.

After graduating, Scieszka worked in a variety of capacities: teaching at an elementary school (mostly second grade), writing for magazines, and painting apartments.

While pursuing his MFA at Columbia in New York, Scieszka painted apartments.

He went on to teach 1st-8th grade at the Day School (currently the Trevor Day School) for ten years.

After that, he started writing and touring full-time, which he still does today.

According to Scieszka, he writes books because he "loves to make kids laugh."

Most of his best-known works were written in conjunction with illustrator Lane Smith.

Among their collaborations are The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! and Math Curse.

He is also the author of the Time Warp Trio series, for which Smith illustrated eight of the sixteen books.

The series has been made into a television show.

The design of many Scieszka and Smith collaborations, including Stinky Cheese Man, is attributed to Molly Leach, Smith's wife.

Scieszka is also the founder of Guys Read, a web-based literacy program for boys whose mission is "to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers."

He founded the nonprofit in response to his experiences as an elementary school teacher and the United States National Assessment of Educational Progress statistics showing boys consistently scoring worse than girls on federal reading tests every year, at every grade level.

Scieszka was the first U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, appointed by the Librarian of Congress for calendar years 2008 and 2009.

His Time Warp Trio series, which teaches kids history, has been adapted into a television show.

In 2008 Scieszka was named the nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature by the Librarian of Congress.

During his two years as Ambassador, it was his job to raise "national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education and the development and betterment of the lives of young people."

For Scieszka, this meant traveling to schools, libraries, and book-related conferences to speak about engaging kids in reading through choice, an expanded definition of reading, positive role models, and embracing new technologies.

He has joked that being an ambassador gets him out of parking tickets.

Scieszka has written and edited many books for various publishers.

The Time Warp Trio books are illustrated middle grade novels about three boys, Sam, Joe, and Fred, who travel through time and space with a magical book.

The early books were illustrated by Lane Smith, and later ones by Adam McCauley.

They are published by Viking Press.

Jon Scieszka - Time Warp Trio Lyrics

Scieszka was inspired to create the Trucktown series because he "really wanted to write something for all of those crazy little guys who didn’t think there was something out there for them to read."

The Trucktown characters and backgrounds were created by the team of David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon.

The over fifty-book Trucktown program includes picture books, "Ready-to-Roll" early reader books, board books, and a variety of activity books.

They are published by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing.

A TV series with the same name was produced by Nelvana and it premiered on Treehouse TV in Canada on September 6, 2014, it was also available to stream as part of Nickelodeon's NOGGIN streaming service.

Picture Books:

Ready-to-Roll:

Spaceheadz is a multi-platform story, told through four books, multiple websites, integrated blogs, social media sites, videos, ads, and user-created content.

The story reveals how three aliens from the planet Spaceheadz disguise themselves as 5th graders in Brooklyn in order to sign up 3.14 million and 1 Earthlings to be Spaceheadz and save Earth.

The extensive online storytelling is managed by Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg.