by Sharron L. McElmeel
Update: November 2014

During his first week of law school, Louis Sachar's first book was accepted for publication. He kept on writing and attending law school. By the time he graduated in 1980, he had written two more books. At that point, he had to decide whether he wanted to be a writer or an attorney. He decided to continue writing. Almost two decades later, in 1999, Louis Sachar was rewarded for his efforts by winning the coveted Newbery Award for his novel, Holes.

Sachar began to write in 1976, during his final year in undergraduate school at the University of California in Berkeley. He had been a teacher's aide at Hillside Elementary School and had worked with Mrs. Juke's class at that school. The children became characters in his first novel, Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Mrs. Jukes became the prototype for the kind teacher, Ms. Jewels. Years later Sachar found out that Mrs. Jukes was the mother of Mavis Jukes, another successful children's author.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School first appeared in 1978. Although the book did not sell very well, Sachar received a lot of fan letters. Still the proceeds of the writing suggested that he could not support himself by writing. Sachar continued with his law studies, eventually studying for and passing the bar exam. Jim Trelease began to read aloud from Sideway Stories in many of his workshops for teachers and parents, which focused on reading aloud to children. Sachar kept writing, and for a while, he worked part time as an attorney in San Francisco. In 1984, he quit law for good to write fulltime.

As his books became more popular, Sachar began to receive more and more fan letters. He regularly received letters from a group of students at Davis Elementary School in Plano, Texas. They implored him to visit their school, as they wanted him to meet their unmarried teacher. Eventually he did accept an invitation to visit the school and did think that their teacher was nice. However, there was a counselor he liked even better. And as luck would have it, she was single. It was not too long before Carla Askew and Louis Sachar were married and living in San Francisco. They had a small, one-bedroom apartment, and even during the summer when Carla was not teaching, she would get up and leave the apartment, so Sachar could write without distraction. She never once suggested that he get a "real job;" she had faith in his writing.

In 1990, Sachar's book, There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, won several state awards including the Texas Bluebonnet Award. Shortly after traveling to Texas to accept the award, Louis, Carla, and three-year-old Sherre decided to move back to Texas, settling in Austin. When Sherre was young, Carla took her to a baby sitter on the way to her teaching job. Louis would spend the mornings writing, and afternoons answering letters from fans and taking care of other correspondence and research. Then just before Carla and Sherre would arrive home, he would rush around picking up the things he had gotten out.

Carla became the inspiration for the counselor in There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom. That character, Carla Davis, got her last name from the school where Sachar first met the real Carla. Many of the phrases used by the counselor in the book are those used by Sachar's wife.

The successful Holes came after Sachar's failed attempt at writing an adult novel after many years of successfully writing for children. In 1993, after writing Wayside School is Getting a Little Stranger, Sachar spent the next two years writing his novel for adults--a book that seemed to go nowhere, with an undeveloped plot and characters who never really emerged.

In 1995, Sachar, along with his family, spent the summer months in Maine. It was in Maine that Sachar realized the novel was not going anywhere and he trashed it. "Texas summers start in May and go to October," and according to Sachar, "give no breaks from the heat." So when they returned home to Texas the oppressive hot summer was only half over. He began to write about the hot summer.

Sachar says, "All of my other books had always begun with a character but this story began with a place--Camp Green Lake. A place that had no lake and hardly anything green. The characters and plot grew out of that place." The idea for the book took off quickly and as soon as he came up with the idea that the juvenile inmates would be made to dig holes, he knew there would be buried treasure. Stanley became the main character, and Sachar did not want to interrupt his train of thought to think of Stanley's last name so he simply spelled it backwards and the name survived through many drafts. Sachar knew the treasure would have been buried by Kissin Kate Barlow and that the warden would be her granddaughter who would use the inmates as slaves in an attempt to find the treasure. He also invented the dangerous, yellow spotted lizards. Later he realized that he liked Kate too much to let her be the warden's grandmother, so he changed that element.

Sachar spent one-and-a-half years writing the book, often getting bogged down in writing, but eventually the story emerged. Every morning he spent approximately two hours writing in his office over the garage. His only companions during the writing process were his two mixed-breed dogs, Lucky and Tippy, as they are the only "people" allowed in his office when he is writing.

When the manuscript was finished he asked his daughter, Sherre, to read the story. She had been in fourth grade when he started the story and now, a year-and-a-half later, she was just the right person to be its first reader. She told him the parts she liked and the parts that didn't make sense. He wrote another draft and finally sent it off to Frances Foster, editor and publisher at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. He had worked with her in the Eighties on several of his successful novels for intermediate readers and again they found that they complemented each other's work. She helped him hone his manuscript into the story he had envisioned.

Sachar's books about Wayside School have been immensely popular with intermediate and early middle school readers, and his Marvin Redpost books are often chosen by readers who are just becoming comfortable with chapter books.

So what does Sachar think of becoming a Newbery Medalist? He says receiving recognition from people in the field of children's literature is nice. But do a couple of national awards outweigh the 20 years of fan letters from children and their parents? "Both are nice," he comments. And even though there are rumors of interest in making Holes into a movie, Sachar says, "I try not to get too excited."

Currently Sachar, his wife Carla, and now teenage daughter Sherre live in North Austin where Sachar has finished three more books about Marvin Redpost and is working on yet another book for middle grade readers. When he is not writing he enjoys playing chess, playing tournament bridge, skiing, playing a guitar and singing loudly.

Selected Books by Louis Sachar. For a complete list, check Sachar's website at http://www.louissachar.com/.

Holes. Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1998.

Johnny's in the Basement. William Morrow, 1998.

Marvin Redpost: Class President. Illustrated by Barbara Wummer. Random House, 1999.

Someday Angeline. Illustrated by Barbara Samuels. William Morrow, 1998.

Wayside School Is Getting a Little Stranger. Illustrated by Joel Schick. William Morrow, 1995.

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UPDATE: After the time that this article was originally published Holes was made into a movie by Disney; release date April 18, 2003. Sachar actually helped to create the script and the outtakes on the DVD provide some great explanations about the transition from book to video. Because of the medium certain changes have to be made -- and Sachar, as author/screenwriter, shares those reasons in the filmmakers' commentary with director Andrew Davis. He has also written two seuqels to Holes, Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake (2003); and Small Steps (2006). Information about his writing, including The Cardturner (2010) can be found on Sachar's website at http://www.louissachar.com/.

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Sharron L. McElmeel is director of McBookwords www.mcbookwords.com (a literacy organization) and an instructor of children's literature and young adult literature at the University of Wisconsin Stout's online education programs. She often writes and speaks about authors/illustrators and their books. www.mcelmeel.com.

This article first appeared in  Book Report (first publication rights only) Copyright for all other uses copyright by Sharron L. McElmeel.  The contents of this article may not be copied or e-mailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder`s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or e-mail articles for individual use.
First appeared:  Book Report, Jan/Feb2000, Vol. 18 Issue 4, p46, 2p    Current Source:   http://www.mcelmeel.com/author/otherwritings/sachar.html.