Dead End in Norvelt Resources

Check out Jack Gantos's website for all the deets on the real Gantos.

This very respectable BBC website details the history behind the Cold War, the setting for Gantos's book.

A timeline of major events that went down during the Cold War.

Get the scoop on some of the major social and economic upheavals that prompted President Roosevelt's "New Deal" at The American Heritage Center Museum's New Deal Website.

This website gives you a tour and some background information on Norvelt and other New Deal Homestead Communities, which were created to help out poor people after the Depression.

Miss Volker might have belonged to the Society of Professional Obituary Writers.

In 1960 (right around when Dead End in Norvelt is set), the Doomsday Clock was set at 7 minutes until midnight—giving the world a figurative representation of how close is was to nuclear war.

We love a good Alice reference—especially when it comes with a meaty interview with Mr. Jack Gantos.

Gantos talks about the challenges and craziness of growing up in his family.

Gantos gives an interview about his semi-autobiographical novel.

Yep. It's a book trailer for Dead End in Norvelt.Like a movie trailer. But for a book.

Jack Gantos talks about moving a lot as a child and reading his sister's diary on the sly in this series of short interviews.

Check out this video of a real live history professor discussing the founding of the real life Norvelt. It's in two parts.

Here's a little backstory on the writing Dead End in Norvelt. Plus, Jack Gantos reads a brief excerpt!

Trust NPR to make even Gantos's time spent in a federal prison sound fancy.

Hey, do you think it's significant that the book cover doesn't show Jack's face?

Hm, the U.K. version looks a bit different.

Check out Jackie's hipster chic glasses and throwback jacket.

Here are several pictures of Gantos as a child. Check out the cute bow-tie!