Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Louis Sachar is magic to the toughest circle of critics: librarians, children's book sellers, teachers -- and, most of all, kids.
All kinds of wayward things happen in his 22 books for children. A teacher turns kids into apples; then the children turn her into an apple, and she is eaten. Mean-spirited camp counselors make children dig holes under a scorching sun supposedly for punishment but really because the counselors are looking for buried treasures.
There are fights, bullies, heroes, some kind grown-ups and some deranged adults, stupid and smart teachers -- even math problems.
But "in all my stories -- even if there are bad adults -- the stories are still a lot of fun," Sachar says.
Sachar has just completed a companion book to his best-known work, Holes (1998), winner of the Newbery Medal and National Book Award before being made into a movie in 2003. The new title is Small Steps and features a character nicknamed Armpit who appeared in Holes.
Sachar's publisher, Delacorte Press, has high hopes: 500,000 copies go on sale today, and Sachar is off on a 17-bookstore tour through January.
Among his stops will be Children's Book World in Los Angeles, where owner Sharon Hearn says his books grab the "reluctant reader all the way to the gifted reader" and appeal as much to adult readers as young readers.
Sachar, 51, was born in East Meadow, N.Y. When he was in third grade, his family -- "a happy, normal suburban family" -- moved to Southern California. He played Little League and was better at math, especially algebra, than reading. He liked the logic of chess as a child and plays bridge as an adult.
For all the mayhem in his books, he remembers only one rotten experience at school. In fifth grade, his teacher made him keep his books at the back of the room because his desk was so messy.
"It was humiliating," he says.
To this day, he says, he has an "organized mind, but I may get up and leave everything a mess because I'm so focused on what I'm doing, I don't think about the little things that I (leave behind)."
In high school, he read J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut, who "got me excited about reading and writing." What both writers have in common, he says, is the ability to engage readers and make them think. He tries to do the same.
"While I tell people I'm trying to write a good, entertaining story, that's true," he says. "But to me, a good, entertaining story is anything that makes you think and feel."
He lives in Austin -- the setting for Small Steps -- with his wife, Carla (a former counselor at an elementary school), their daughter, Sherre, 18, and a rescue dog named Watson (as in Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson).
Sachar works from his home, and no one, except Watson, is allowed into his office, where he has a desk, a computer and a 1950s pinball machine.
He writes about two hours a day and revises his manuscripts six or so times. He never talks about his writing to anyone until the book is finished.
"Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about," he says. "I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result."
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
