Authors at the GPL: Jarrett J. Krosoczka

 Join us at the Greenfield Public Library on Tuesday, April 2, at 5:30 pm as we welcome best selling author Jarrett J. Krosoczka. Jarrett will be giving a presentation on his 2018 National Book Award Finalist graphic memoir “Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction”. 

Hey, Kiddo is a profoundly important memoir about growing up in a family grappling with addiction, and finding the art that helps you survive. In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka’s teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. But Jarrett’s family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett’s life. His father is a mystery — Jarrett doesn’t know where to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives with his grandparents — two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children until Jarrett came along.

Jarrett goes through his childhood trying to make his non-normal life as normal as possible, finding a way to express himself through drawing even as so little is being said to him about what’s going on. Only as a teenager can Jarrett begin to piece together the truth of his family, reckoning with his mother and tracking down his father.

A Q&A session and book signing will follow immediately after. Copies of Hey, Kiddo are available for checkout at Greenfield Public Library and will be available for sale at the event.

For more information, contact Francesca Passiglia at francesca.passiglia@greenfield-ma.gov, or call (413) 772-1544.

This program is generously funded by The Friends of the Greenfield Public Library, The Opioid Task Force, Massachusetts Library Board of Library Commissioners and The Institute of Museum and Library Services.