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. His father is a mystery - Jarrett doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett's life. But Jarrett's family is much more complicated than that.

In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka's teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. In a very powerful turn of events, even my birth father came in to read as himself, which included that first letter that he wrote to me when I was a teenager.The powerful, unforgettable graphic memoir from Jarrett Krosoczka, about growing up with a drug-addicted mother, a missing father, and two unforgettably opinionated grandparents. Even Pat’s mom came into the studio for a few lines, as did Barbara Kholstrohm, who worked as the office manager at my grandfather’s shop. The role of Pat was split between the actual Pat and his 11-year-old son, Seamus. Every single person that I invited along jumped at the chance. And from that, Paul suggested we cast the actual people. I compiled home video clips to share with Paul and his team so they could get a sense of their voices. So I invited my former high school teachers, Mark Lynch, Robin Bahrr Casey, and Richard Shilale-they were all on board! This led to casting the characters who represent my family members.

And then it hit me, why don’t we just invite along the actual people. Paul was looking for a place for the other readers as some of the teachers, but I couldn’t imagine how the real people would react to the interpretations. Since then, I have had many conversations with educators who have expressed enthusiasm that this adaptation would offer equal access to the students they serve. He had no entry into the story otherwise. But what convinced me that it would be important work was meeting a reader who is blind at one of the live reads. Without question, I was so excited for the challenge to adapt Hey, Kiddo for audio. That convinced him that an audiobook adaptation of graphic literature was possible. Paul was also impressed with what HarperAudio had been able to do with the audiobook adaptation of Nimona by Noelle Stevenson.

Scholastic Audiobooks had also produced audio adaptations of Brian Selznick’s books, which have several visual segments. Paul produced audiobooks of two YA titles by Cherie Priest, which were primarily text narratives with graphic sequences interspersed between chapters. He had a lightbulb moment of how we could approach this graphic memoir as an audiobook. Paul Gagne of Scholastic Audiobooks was in that audience.

Jarrett hey kiddo