Louis Sachar

Louis Sachar ( ; born March 20, 1954) is an American author. He is best known for the Wayside School series and the novel Holes.

Holes won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". In 2013, it was ranked sixth among all children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.

Early life, family and education 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,

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 wrote the book at night over the course of nine months, during which he worked during the day in a Connecticut sweater warehouse.

After Sachar graduated from law school in 1980, he performed legal work part-time while continuing to write children's books. By 1989, his books were selling well enough that Sachar was able to begin writing full-time. 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)

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 ) 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)