Louis Sachar

Biography

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. 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. Sachar later recalled,

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."

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. 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. By 1989, his books were selling well enough that Sachar was able to begin writing full-time.

Sachar married Carla Askew, an elementary school counselor, in 1985. They have a daughter. 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."

Film and television

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. 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.

Works

;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)
• 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)
• 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)
• Fuzzy Mud (2015)
• The Magician of Tiger Castle (2025)

References

References

1. "About the Author".
2. "''Holes'' – Winner, National Book Awards 1998 for Young People's Literature".
3. "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present". [[Association for Library Service to Children]].
4. Bird, Elizabeth. (July 7, 2012). "Top 100 Chapter Book Poll Results". A Fuse #8 Production. Blog..
5. "Teacher Resource – Louis Sachar: The "Hole" Truth". Behrman House Publishing.
6. Nolos, Alex. (September 11, 2018). "Celebrate Rosh Hashanah With These 11 Amazing Jewish Authors!".
7. (September 10, 2015). "Louis Sachar — Biography".
8. (February 23, 2006). "Louis Sachar Interview Transcript".
9. Strickland, Barbara. (February 26, 1999). "Louis Sachar: Top of His Class".
10. Goodnow, Cecelia. (January 10, 2006). "Author Louis Sachar returns with a spinoff of his kids classic, 'Holes'". [[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]].
11. McElmeel, Sharron L.. (2005). "An Award Winning Author: Louis Sachar".
12. (August 2, 2015). "'Kids Love To Be Scared': Louis Sachar On Balancing Fun And Fear". [[All Things Considered]].
13. La Jeunesse, Marilyn. (April 12, 2022). "18 things you probably didn't know about 'Holes'". [[Insider Inc..
14. (October 24, 2009). "Pig City by Louis Sachar".
15. Marcus, Leonard S.. (November 10, 2011). "The Chronicles of Harris Burdick – 14 Amazing Authors Tell the Tales – By Chris Van Allsburg and others. Illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg – book review". The New York Times.