John Rocco


Christopher John Rocco, simply known as John Rocco is an American illustrator of book covers and children's books. He is best known for illustrating the covers of books in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. He is the sole creator of some children's picture books.

Personal life

Rocco was raised in Barrington, Rhode Island. He studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and earned a degree from the latter.

Career

Rocco did not take drawing seriously until he was 19 years old. Rocco has also been an international art director in the entertainment industry. Rocco was the pre-production art director at DreamWorks for the film Shrek. He designed attractions at Disney's Epcot and served as art director for DisneyQuest.
Two companion books to the Percy Jackson series were published in 2014 and 2015, with lavish interior illustrations by Rocco, Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes. Regarding the first Kirkus Reviews observed in a starred review, "Riordan has a sure touch when it comes to fitting much into a small space—as does Rocco’s artwork, which smokes and writhes on the page as if hit by lightning ...". John Rocco spent 18 months as animation director at ImagineAsia in Manila, Philippines. Rocco worked on and oversaw several projects while there involving CGI animation, motion capture, and story development.

Awards

Rocco was a runner-up for the American Library Association Caldecott Medal, which annually recognizes the best in U.S. children's picture book illustration, when Blackout was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 2012. Rocco's book How We Got to the Moon was one of the ten books selected on the longlist for the 2020 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Children's books as writer

  • Wolf! Wolf!, picture book – "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" told from the wolf's point of view and set in Asia,, Rocco's first book as writer
  • Moonpowder
  • Fu Finds the Way
  • Blackout
  • Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom
  • Blizzard, – companion to Blackout; based on his Rhode Island childhood experience in the New England blizzard of 1978
  • Swim that Rock, Rocco and Jay Primiano, 293 pp. unillus., - a "middle grade/YA novel" by Rocco and an old friend, the "captain of the shellfishing boat I worked on as a child".

    As illustrator only

;Interior illustrations
  • Alice, picture book written by Whoopi Goldberg
  • Boy, Were We Wrong about the Solar System, Kathleen V. Kudlinski
  • The Flint Heart: a fairy story, Katherine and John Paterson – "freely abridged from Eden Phillpotts's 1910 fantasy",
  • The Hunter Chronicles by E. J. Patten
  • * Return to Exile, snare 1,
  • * The Legend Thief, snare 2
  • How to Train a Train, Jason Carter Eaton
  • Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep!, Todd Tarpley
  • How to Track a Truck, Jason Carter Eaton
  • Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, Rick Riordan – illustrated with more than 60 paintings
  • Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, Rick Riordan
  • How to Send a Hug, Hayley Rocco
;Cover and dustjacket art
Another artist illustrated the first edition dustjacket for at least the first Camp Half-Blood Chronicles novel by Rick Riordan,The Lightning Thief. Before the end of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians subseries, all volumes were in print with stylistically matching dustjackets illustrated by Rocco. New cover illustrations from a single Rocco painting that spans all five books were introduced early in 2014.