© 2026 Blue Ridge Public Radio
Blue Ridge Mountains banner background
Your source for information and inspiration in Western North Carolina.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

All-Star Comedy Team Creates Middle-Grade Comic Novel

Craig Robinson, Adam Mansbach, and Keith Knight unite to create a middle-grade comic novel about a sixth grader faking his way through a prestigious arts academy.
Craig Robinson, Adam Mansbach, and Keith Knight unite to create a middle-grade comic novel about a sixth grader faking his way through a prestigious arts academy.
Craig Robinson, Adam Mansbach, and Keith Knight unite to create a middle-grade comic novel about a sixth grader faking his way through a prestigious arts academy.
Craig Robinson, Adam Mansbach, and Keith Knight unite to create a middle-grade comic novel about a sixth grader faking his way through a prestigious arts academy.

When a comedian, a cartoonist and an author team up to write young adult fiction, it leads to a hilarious book about a sixth-grader with a secret.

The book “Jake the Fake Keeps it Real” (Penguin Random House/2017) is the collaboration of Craig Robinson, Adam Mansbach and Keith Knight. Robinson is best known for his role on the television sitcom “The Office” and movies including “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “This is the End.” Mansbach is famous for his expletive-ridden book masquerading as a children’s bedtime story, and cartoonist Keith Knight created the “K-Chronicles.”

The story and 160 of Knight’s illustrations show the efforts of a decidedly-average middle schooler trying to fit in at a magnet music and arts academy.

Keith Knight presents his cartoons dealing with police brutality at 7 p.m. tonight at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Host Frank Stasio talks with Knight, Mansbach, and Robinson about their collaboration. Host Frank Stasio speaks with actor Craig Robinson, writer Adam Mansbach, and cartoonist Keith Knight about their book, “Jake the Fake Keeps it Real”. 

Copyright 2017 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Jennifer Brookland is a temporary producer for The State of Things.