Jerry Spinelli
Award-winning author Jerry Spinelli's dream of becoming a major league baseball player changed when at sixteen, his poem about a football game was published in the local newspaper. He has written more than a dozen books for young readers, including Maniac Magee (1990), winner of the 1991 Newbery Medal and Wringer (1997), a 1998 Newbery Honor Book. His most recent book is Milkweed (Knopf, 2003). He lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Eileen Spinelli, also a children's book author.
