Louis Sachar

Sachar was born on March 20, 1954, at Meadowbrook Hospital in East Meadow, New York to a religious Jewish family. As a child, he attended Hebrew school and Sunday school.{{cite web | url=http://www.behrmanhouse.com/RL/louis-sachar-the-hole-truth | title=Teacher Resource – Louis Sachar: The "Hole" Truth |work=Behrman House Publishing |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304110044/http://www.behrmanhouse.com/RL/louis-sachar-the-hole-truth |archive-date=March 4, 2016}}{{Cite web|last=Nolos|first=Alex|date=September 11, 2018|title=Celebrate Rosh Hashanah With These 11 Amazing Jewish Authors!|url=https://bookstr.com/article/celebrate-rosh-hashanah-with-these-11-amazing-jewish-authors/|access-date=April 9, 2022|website=bookstr.com|language=en-US}} After graduating from Tustin High School, Sachar attended Antioch College for a semester before transferring to University of California, Berkeley, during which time he began helping at an elementary school in return for three college credits.{{Cite web |date=September 10, 2015 |title=Louis Sachar — Biography |url=http://www.louissachar.com/Bio.htm |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=LouisSachar.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150910015014/http://www.louissachar.com/Bio.htm |archive-date=September 10, 2015 |url-status=dead}} Sachar later recalled,

{{blockquote|I thought it over and decided it was a pretty good deal. College credits, no homework, no term papers, no tests, all I had to do was help out in a second/third grade class at Hillside Elementary School. Besides helping out in a classroom, I also became the Noontime Supervisor, or "Louis the Yard Teacher" as I was known to the kids. It became my favorite college class, and a life changing experience.}}

Sachar graduated from UC Berkeley in 1976 with a degree in economics, and began working on Sideways Stories From Wayside School, a children's book set at an elementary school with supernatural elements. Although the book's students were named after children from Hillside and there is a presumably autobiographical character named "Louis the Yard Teacher," Sachar has said that he draws very little from personal experience, stating that "my personal experiences are kind of boring. I have to make up what I put in my books."{{cite web|url=http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=10532_type=Contributor_typeId=3603 |title=Louis Sachar Interview Transcript |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090201113712/http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=10532_type=Contributor_typeId=3603 |archive-date=February 1, 2009 |website=scholastic.com |date=February 23, 2006 |access-date=July 18, 2007}} (Chats with students and teachers, with linked transcripts dated 2000 and 2005)

Sachar wrote the book at night over the course of nine months, during which he worked during the day in a Connecticut sweater warehouse. After being fired from the warehouse, Sachar decided to go to law school, around which time Sideways Stories From Wayside School was accepted for publication. The book was released in 1978; though it was not widely distributed and subsequently did not sell very well, Sachar began to accumulate a fan base among young readers.{{Cite web |last=Strickland |first=Barbara |date=February 26, 1999 |title=Louis Sachar: Top of His Class |website=The Austin Chronicle |url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/books/1999-02-26/521429/ |access-date=April 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202232102/http://www.austinchronicle.com/books/1999-02-26/521429/ |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |url-status=dead}} Sachar graduated from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1980 and did part-time legal work while continuing to write children's books.{{Cite news|last=Goodnow|first=Cecelia|date=January 10, 2006|title=Author Louis Sachar returns with a spinoff of his kids classic, 'Holes'|url=https://www.seattlepi.com/entertainment/books/article/Author-Louis-Sachar-returns-with-a-spinoff-of-his-1192164.php|access-date=April 9, 2022|newspaper=Seattle Post-Intelligencer|language=en-US|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108075002/https://www.seattlepi.com/entertainment/books/article/Author-Louis-Sachar-returns-with-a-spinoff-of-his-1192164.php|archive-date=November 8, 2020}} By 1989, his books were selling well enough that Sachar was able to begin writing full-time.

Sachar married Carla Askew,{{cite web|last=McElmeel |first=Sharron L. |date=2005 |orig-date=2000 |url=http://www.mcelmeel.com/writing/sachar.html |title=An Award Winning Author: Louis Sachar |website=mcelmeel.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720084117/http://www.mcelmeel.com/writing/sachar.html |archive-date=July 20, 2008 |access-date=October 29, 2015}} (First published in Book Report 18.4, Jan/Feb 2000, pp. 46–47) an elementary school counselor, in 1985. They live in Austin, Texas, and have a daughter, Sherre, born January 19, 1987. Sachar has mentioned both his wife and daughter in his books; Carla was the inspiration for the counselor in There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom (1988) and for Stanley's lawyer in Holes.

In 2015, when asked whether he thought children had changed over the years, Sachar responded: "I've actually been writing since 1976, and my first book is still in print and doing very well. So, no, I don't think kids have changed."{{cite AV media |title='Kids Love To Be Scared': Louis Sachar On Balancing Fun And Fear |publisher=All Things Considered |date=August 2, 2015 |url=https://www.wnyc.org/story/kids-love-to-be-scared-louis-sachar-on-balancing-fun-and-fear/ |time=4:57}}

On April 11, 2003, Disney's film adaptation of Holes was released, which earned $71.4 million worldwide. Sachar himself wrote the screenplay, at the request of the film's director Andrew Davis, and has a brief on-screen cameo during one of the flashback scenes.{{cite news |last=La Jeunesse |first=Marilyn |title=18 things you probably didn't know about 'Holes' |url=https://www.insider.com/cool-and-interesting-things-about-film-holes-fun-facts |access-date=March 9, 2023 |work=Insider |date=April 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription}} On November 19, 2005, the Wayside School series was adapted into an animated direct-to-video special. Two years later, it became a television series with two seasons, airing on the Canadian Teletoon and Nickelodeon in the U.S.

;Wayside School

• Sideways Stories from Wayside School (1978)
• Wayside School is Falling Down (1989)
• Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School (1989)
• More Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School (1994)
• Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger (1995)
• Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom (2020)

;Marvin Redpost

• Kidnapped at Birth? (1992)
• Why Pick on Me? (1993)
• Is He a Girl? (1993)
• Alone In His Teacher's House (1994)
• Class President (1999)
• A Flying Birthday Cake? (1999)
• Super Fast Out of Control! (2000)
• A Magic Crystal? (2000)

;Holes series

• Holes (1998) — winner of the National Book Award and Newbery Medal
• Holes Special Edition (1998){{Cn|date=August 2024}}
• Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake (2003)
• Small Steps (2006)

;Other books

• Johnny's in the Basement (1981)
• Someday Angeline (1983)
• Sixth Grade Secrets (1987) (known as Pig City in the UK{{cite web | url = http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Pig_City_by_Louis_Sachar | title = Pig City by Louis Sachar | website=thebookbag.co.uk | date=October 24, 2009 | access-date = May 27, 2009}})
• There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom (1987)
• The Boy Who Lost His Face (1989)
• Dogs Don't Tell Jokes (1991)
• The Cardturner (2010)
• Captain Tory (2011) (collected in The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales){{Cn|date=August 2024}}
• Fuzzy Mud (2015)

{{reflist |25em}}

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{{Portal |Children's literature}}

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Category:1954 births

Category:American children's writers

Category:Jewish American children's writers

Category:Jewish American artists

Category:Newbery Medal winners

Category:National Book Award for Young People's Literature winners

Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni

Category:University of California College of the Law, San Francisco alumni

Category:Antioch College alumni

Category:People from East Meadow, New York

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Austin, Texas

Category:21st-century American Jews