A Norwalk author who has won some of the country's top prizes for his new children's book will draw for a virtual live audience Monday afternoon.

Jerry Craft, the first graphic novelist ever to win the Newbury Prize for Children's Literature, will be the guest of honor at Westport Library's Camp Explore.

Craft's latest book, "New Kid," is a New York Times bestseller that won the 2020 Newbury Prize and the coveted Coretta Scott King Award. The book tells the story of Jordan Banks, an African American kid who's adjusting to life at a new private school. He says it's only the second book in history to win both prizes.

The book is loosely based on his life, and his sons' lives.

"I always just wanted to go back and write a book for a 12-year-old Jerry Craft that would turn him into a reader much earlier than me," Craft says.

Craft says it's a slice-of-life perspective that's been missing from books for kids.

"It shouldn't be groundbreaking, but it is," he said. "You have this kid that grows up in Washington Heights, in New York City, just like I did, and he wants to be an artist -- his parents don't want him to be an artist -- and they send him to this fancy private school in Riverdale, which is what I did. So, just, each day going back and forth from one world to the other, without really fitting into either."

Craft's sketch session will be available at the Westport Library's website.

The Westport Library's Camp Explore series will also include a Q&A session with oceanographer Bob Ballard, and a reading with R.L. Stine later this summer.