Louis Sachar was born on

the 20th of March, 1954 in

East Meadow, New York.

He lived there until he was nine, when the family

moved to California.

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Louis' dad worked on the

78th floor of the Empire

State Building. The building has 103 floors.

When Louis was at college in

Ohio, his father died and he

went back home to California.

He got a job selling cleaning products door-to-door.

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When he was at college, he

did voluntary work at a local

elementary school because

he could count it towards his degree without doing any

written work!

Louis Sachar is a qualified

lawyer. He worked as a

lawyer for 9 years, until his

books began to sell well enough for him to give it up.

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Louis Sachar writes for

two hours every morning.

He does not talk to anyone about a book

until it is finished.

The Cardturner is Louis

Sachar's favourite of his own

books. He found Holes the

most difficult to write.

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Louis married Carla Askew in

1985 and their daughter

Sherre was born in 1987.

Carla was a school counsellor when they met. Later, she

became a zookeeper.

Louis Sachar has published

25 books, all for children or young adults.

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His first book was Sideways

Stories from Wayside School.

It was accepted by a publisher during his first week at

Law School.

Holes has won awards including the

1998 National Book Award for Young

People's Literature and the 1999

Newbery Medal. Over 8 million copies of the book have been sold.

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Holes was made into a film in

2003 starring Shia LaBeouf,

Sigourney Weaver and Jon

Voight. Sachar appears in the film for a couple of seconds.

Sam sells him some onion juice.

It takes him up to two years

to write a book, and he

rewrites it five or six times during the process.

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Louis Sachar's favourite book

as a child was Charlotte's Web by E. B. White.

Sachar wanted to be an author

from the time he was in High School.

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Sideways Stories From Wayside

School was inspired by his time

working in an elementary school. He used names of the children

and staff at the school in his book.

Louis Sachar was fired from his

job in a sweater factory, and that

was when he decided to go to law school.

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Sachar loves to do things

backwards in his books. The hero

of Holes is called Stanley Yelnats

(Stanley backwards), and he even wrote a whole chapter of Wayside

School is Falling Down backwards.

When he was volunteering at an

elementary school, the children

called him Louis the Yard Teacher

because he supervised the yard at lunchtime. He put Louis the Yard

Teacher into his first book as a character.

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The correct pronunciation of

his name is Loo-is Sack-er (rhymes with cracker).

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