Rotten Ralph is a cat who stars in twenty picture books written by Gantos and illustrated by Nicole Rubel from 1976 to 2014.

[1] Dead End also won the 2012 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction[2] and made the Guardian Prize longlist in Britain.

[citation needed] After serving one and a half years of a six-year sentence he entered college and continued writing, finally publishing his first book, Rotten Ralph, in 1976.

Within ten years Gantos and Rubel completed some twenty picture books including two more in the Rotten Ralph series.

[citation needed] Gantos is the author of dozens of published picture books including about twenty illustrated by Nicole Rubel.