Louis Sachar’s first goal when writing books is to make reading fun. This world-renowned author repeatedly has achieved this goal as his humorous, poignant tales have delighted children and adults alike for three decades.
Sachar, the author of the Newbery Medal-winning Holes, is coming to Tulsa to accept the Tulsa Library Trust’s 2008 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature. He will receive the Zarrow award at 7 p.m. on Aug. 22 at Central Library, Fourth Street and Denver Avenue. The award consists of a $7,500 cash prize and an engraved crystal book.
Sachar will give out awards to winners of Tulsa City-County Library’s 2008 Young People’s Creative Writing Contest at 10 a.m. on Aug. 23 at Central Library.
He will speak, answer questions from the audience and sign books at both events. Copies of his books will be available for purchasing. The events are free and open to the public.
Sachar began his career in the late 1970s with the zany Sideways Stories From Wayside School, a collection of 30 stories, each one corresponding with a floor in the 30-story Wayside School. Sachar’s experience as a teacher’s aide while an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley inspired him to write the book.
“On campus one day, I saw the unlikely sight of an elementary school girl handing out flyers. I took one from her. It said: ‘Help. We need teachers aides at our school. Earn three units of credit.’ 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,” said Sachar on his Web site: www.louissachar.com.
Besides helping out in the classroom, Sachar also was the noontime supervisor (aka “Louis the Yard Teacher”). He said he based all the kids at Wayside School on the kids at Hillside. Other titles in the Wayside School series are Wayside School Is Falling Down, Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School and Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger.
Sachar’s popularity as an author of children’s and young adult literature stems partly from his choice of characters. The protagonists are often outcasts who learn about themselves and gain social acceptance through their relationships with other children and adults.
Sachar is best known for Holes, winner of the National Book Award and Newbery Medal. Holes tells the story of Stanley Yelnats, a boy who is sentenced to go to Camp Green Lake, a punishment camp for bad boys, after being falsely accused of stealing a star athlete’s sneakers. The boys at the camp dig 5-foot-by-5-foot holes in the dried-up lake bed all day long, under the hot Texas sun. Sachar said he thinks so many kids relate to Stanley’s character because he isn’t a hero.
“He’s a kind of pathetic kid who feels like he has no friends, feels like his life is cursed. And I think everyone can identify with that in one way or another,” said Sachar. “You always have to imagine what your character would be feeling and thinking, to see yourself as the character. Then you try to come up with characteristics that are interesting to the reader.”
This No. 1 New York Times best-seller was turned into a Walt Disney movie, starring Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight. His latest novel, Small Steps, is a follow-up to Holes and features the character Armpit.
Sachar also is the author of There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom, The Boy Who Lost His Face, Sixth Grade Secrets and the Marvin Redpost series.
For more information about Sachar’s visit to Tulsa or the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature, call 596-7977 or visit the library’s Web site at www.tulsalibrary.org.
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