Louis Sachar Books In Order

Publication Order of Holes Books

Publication Order of Marvin Redpost Books

Publication Order of Someday Angeline Books

Publication Order of Wayside School Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Louis Sachar
Author Louis Sachar (pronounced Sacker) was born March 20, 1954 in East Meadow, New York, where his family lived until the third grade. His dad worked up on the 78th floor of the Empire State Building, which may have inspired “Wayside School”, but who knows?

At the age of nine, they moved to Tustin, California, which at the time, was filled with orange groves all around. Local kids would team up and have orange fights, with ‘ammo’ hanging from the trees, but the best ones were the rotten, gushy ones lying on the ground.

Louis enjoyed school and was a pretty good student, but he became an avid reader only once he hit high school. Kurt Vonnegut and J. D. Salinger were authors that first inspired him. Oher favorite authors include: Richard Price, Kazuo Ishiguor, E. L. Doctorow, and E. B. White. His favorite authors wound up becoming his heroes and he wanted to be just like them.

He attended Antioch College in Ohio. During his first semester, his dad died, and he went back to California in order to be close to his mom. During this time, he sold cleaning products door-to-door, working as a Fuller Brush man.

He went back to college, going to the University of California at Berkeley where he was an Economics major. On the campus one day, he saw a rather unlikely sight of a girl in elementary school handing flyers out. Louis took one from the girl, and saw it was asking for teachers aides at the school and it would be worth three college credits. Seemed like a good deal to Louis. No homework, it was worth some college credit, no tests, no term papers, and he just had to help out in one second/third grade class at Hillside Elementary.

Besides helping out in one of the classrooms, he also became the Noontime Supervisor, or “Louis the Yard Teacher” as the kids called him. It quickly became his favorite college class, and it was an experience that changed his life.

He had written a story for a creative writing class in high school based off of his third grade teacher, about a character named Mrs. Gorf. His teacher did not like it, thinking he hadn’t taken the assignment at all seriously. He believed it was a good story. While working at the elementary school for this class, the kids enjoyed it. This is what helped him think he could be a writer or even write some longer stories.

When he graduated in the year 1976, he set out to write a kid’s book, which later became “Sideways Stories From Wayside School”. All of the kids at Wayside School were each based on the ones he knew while at Hillside.

In all, it took him around nine months to finally write the book, writing in the evenings. During the day, he worked in a sweater warehouse in Connecticut, from which he got fired after around a year, since he had insufficient enthusiasm for sweaters. After that, he chose to go to law school, and during his first week a publisher bought “Sideways Stories From Wayside School”.

After finishing law school, passing the bar exam and graduating in the year 1980, he did part-time legal work while he kept writing kid’s books. In the year 1989, sales for his books began starting to sell well enough, he was able to quit practicing law to write full time.

Carla, his wife, was working as a counselor at an elementary school when they first met. She served as the inspiration for the counselor in his book “There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom”. They got married in 1985 and had a daughter, named Sherre, in 1987.

Each morning, he writes for no more than two hours each day. He never once talks about a book until he has completed it. He took two years writing a recent book and no one, not even his wife, his editor, or daughter knew a thing about it until he was done. They were the first ones that read it. It is a novel called “Fuzzy Mud”, however his original title was “Frankengerms”.

Louis finds that each book he writes is special. It is an exploration of his soul and mind. Since he usually doesn’t get paid until more than a year after he has written each book, he doesn’t feel the link between working and making money.

He writes book to make reading enjoyable for whomever decides to read them. It is his first goal with each of his books.

He enjoys playing bridge during any spare time that he has. He can be found at the bridge club in Austin or some tournament around the country someplace.

A movie was released in the year 2003, based off of “Holes”, for which Louis wrote the script. It was directed by Andrew Davis and starred Shia LeBoeuf, Jon Voight, and Sigourney Weaver. “The Wayside School” series was adapted into a special and then an animated sitcom that aired for two seasons.

“Holes” was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Award in the UK and won a Newbery Medal in the United States. It also won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. In the year 2013, it ranked sixth among all kids’ novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.

Louis writes young adult and children’s fiction.

“Holes” is the first novel in the “Holes” series, and was released in the year 1998. Stanley attempts to dig up the real truth in this darkly humorous and inventive tale of punishment and crime. And redemption.

Stanley Yelnats is cursed. One that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has followed the generations of Yelnats. Stanley has now just been unjustly sent off to a boys’ detention center, called Camp Green Lake. Here the warden makes the boys ‘build their character’ by spending each and every day digging holes. Ones that are five feet deep and five feet wide.

It doesn’t take too long for Stanley to figure out there is more than character improvement happening at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes since the warden is trying to find something.

2 Responses to “Louis Sachar”

1. Mrs. Clewley: 3 years ago

   Dear Mr. Sacher,
   We just finished Sideways Stories of Wayside School. Our class loves it and can’t wait to read more of your books. We thought the information on this webpage was really interesting–especially the part about students actually calling you “Louis the Yard Teacher.”
   Thanks for writing such a great book!
   Love,
   Isabella, Isabelle, Serafina, Shannon, Brandon, Gael, Kylie, Nicole, Benjamin, Aubrey, Adam K., Alana, Andrei, Adam S., Addison, Daniel, Declan, Alexander, Keira & Mrs. Clewley

   Reply
   • Graeme: 3 years ago

     Hello,

     That is such a nice message to write. It’s something I hope you take along with you in life – writing to authors to thank them or praise them when they have entertained you. It is a very nice thing to do 🙂

     I should note we just list the books written by Louis. You can send a message to him directly at this link. I am sure he would love to hear from you this lovely message.

     http://www.louissachar.com/contact.html

     Reply