part  2

Jerry also got material from his own kids. Along the way he married another children's writer, Eileen Spinelli, and from their six kids have come a number of stories. Jeffrey and Molly, who are always fighting, have been especially helpful.

Ideas also come from everyday life. And from the newspapers. One day, for example, Jerry Spinelli read a story about a girl who competed on her high school wrestling team. A year later bookstores carried a new book with my Jerry's on it: There's a Girl in My Hammerlock.

So there he was. He never became a cowboy or baseball player, and now He's beginning to wonder,if he ever really became a writer.He found that Jerry hesitate to put that label on himself, to define himself by what he would do for a living. After all,Jerry also pick berries and touch ponies and skim flat stones over water and marvel at the stars and breathe deeply and grin from ear to ear and save the best part for last.He'd always done these things. Which is to say, that he never had to become anything. Or anyone. Jerry always, already, was.

Call me a berry-picking, pony-touching star-marveler.