Not So Rotten Ralph (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

Jack Gantos: "While I was in college, I began writing stories about animals. When I first met Nicole Rubel she was a painting student... We had a friend who thought we had a similar sense of humor. So we teamed up and began working together on picture books ... At first I thought children's books had to be sweet, warm, and gentle ... After [several] failures, I was very frustrated. Then I remembered what one of my teacheers told me. He said, 'You should write about what you know:' I was sitting at my desk and I looked down on the floor and saw my lousy, grumpy, hissing creep of a cat that loved to scratch my ankles, throw fur around the house, and shred the clothes in my closet. So I wrote the first draft of Rotten Ralph."

NICOLE RUBEL has illustrated more than fifty books for children, including the Rotten Ralph series by Jack Gantos, which has been in print for more than twenty years. She lives in Oregon.