‘Lunch Lady’ Author: Let’s Celebrate School Lunch Superheroes on May 3
By John Rosales
After publishing his first book, Good Night, Monkey Boy, author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczkareturned to his old elementary school in Worcester, Massachusetts to talk to students about writing, illustrating, and publishing books. While walking the halls at Gates Lane School, he says he ran into the “beloved lunch lady of my youth.” Her name was Jean Cariglia. It was 2001 and he hadn’t seen her in decades.“At first, she mistook me for my uncle, who is 20 years older than I,” Krosoczka says. “In our conversation, she talked about how proud she was of her grandchildren. That very fact, that the school chef would have this whole other life that I didn’t know about, triggered my imagination: What would the lunch staff be doing when they weren’t serving food? Naturally, they would be fighting crime!”
That was the beginning of what would become an acclaimed and popular series of 10 graphic novels about two school cafeteria workers who serve hungry students by day and fight crime by night. Krosoczka recently spoke with NEA Today about his two unlikely superheroes, Lunch Lady and Betty, and an event he is launching this year with Random House and the School Nutrition Association: School Lunch Superhero Day. Celebrated around School Nutrition Employee Week, School Lunch Superhero Day will be staged on