Louis Sachar
An award-winning author of many books and many more to come!
Meet Louis Sachar
Louis Sachar is an award-winning author of twenty-five books for children and young adults.
His book, Holes, won a National Book Award and the Newbery Medal! He was born in East Meadow, New York on March 20, 1954. His dad worked on the 78th floor of the Empire State Building, which maybe inspired Wayside School.
Louis Sachar enjoyed school and was a good student, but it wasn't until high school that he really became big reader. J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut were the authors who first inspired him. Some of Sachar’s other favorite authors were E.L. Doctorow, Margaret Atwood, E.B White, Richard Price and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Louis Sachar uses many techniques, such as repeating. He repeats words in Holes, The Card tuner, and Fuzzy Mud. He Sachar also uses numbers to build a mood or raise the stakes! He does this is in Holes, The Card tuner, and Fuzzy Mud.
Holes
Small Steps
Fuzzy Mud
Techniques
Repeating
Louis Sachar uses repetition in his books a lot. I have noticed it in three of his books.
In Fuzzy Mud, Sachar repeats day, to raise the stakes. “All it had taken was a day -- just one day.” He repeats day, talking about the mud, to show that the mud can spread and grow, and all it needed was one day.
He also repeats die out here in Holes, to help the readers understand what it is like out in Camp Green Lake. “You’ll die out here… Then I’ll die out here.”
In The Cardturner, he uses repetition to tell the reader how Bridge works. Sachar tell us how tricks work in this sentence. “That person is then on–lead for the next trick. That means he or she…”
Using Numbers to build a mood or raise the stakes
Louis Sachar uses numbers in his stories to raise the stakes, build a mood, or just inform his readers.
In Fuzzy Mud he uses numbers at the end of each chapter. He has numbers multiplied by 2. He does this to build a creepy mood. “2 • 1=2 2 • 2=4”
He also uses that in The Cardturner, he uses numbers when Alton is trying to help his blind Uncle Lester. “Um, six of diamonds.”
Louis Sachar uses numbers in Holes to tell the reader about the holes the juvenile dig. “Three holes met and formed one big hole.”
Listing to make readers think or to inform them.
Listing to make the readers think or to inform them
Sachar uses listing to give information to the readers or make them think more about what is happening in the book.
Sachar uses listing in The Cardturner, to tell us what leads to failure. “Kindness, generosity, honesty–all leads to failure.” I like this quote because I think it is really funny.
In Fuzzy Mud, Louis Sachar uses listing to tell the reader what the students are thinking about. “The police are looking for him, he’s probably in jail somewhere, he’d stolen, like, ten cars…”
Sachar used listing in Holes to tell us what the cabins/tents were. “A,B,C,D,E, or F.”
Sentence Interrupter
Sachar uses sentence interrupters to give us more information about what is happening in the story.
In The Cardturner Sachar uses sentence interrupter to tell us Alton is saying what his mom wants him to say to his Uncle Lester. “Tell him you love him, I love you, Uncle Lester, tell him he’s your favorite uncle, You’re my favorite uncle…”
In Small Steps, Louis Sachar uses sentence interrupter to tell the readers when the concert is going to be. “Friday, with the concert just eight days away, Armpit went to the Stop & Shop after school to buy a newspaper.
Common theme
A common theme I noticed was that Louis Sachar likes to make his title highly related to the book. For example In Holes, The title says a big part of the whole book, digging holes. And in Small Steps, it is about Armpit out of Camp Green Lake and taking small steps to living a normal life. In Fuzzy Mud it is about the outbreak of Fuzzy Mud. And in the back it says “Be careful where you step. It may be your last.” This means that Fuzzy Mud just sucks you right up, so if you step in it, you will be stuck in it and won’t be able to get out. In the Cardturner it is about a boy who turns cards, very simple to see the resemblance.
The Breakup (a short story in the style of Louis Sachar)
Contact Louis Sachar
Location: Delacorte Books for Young Readers Publicity 1745 Broadway New York, NY 10019 USA
Louis Sachar's website
http://www.louissachar.com/books.html to Louis Sachar's books
Videos to interviews
Bibliography
Bibliography
-- Sachar, Louis Fuzzy Mud. New York: Random Children’s Books. 2015
-- Sachar, Louis Holes. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2000
-- Sachar Louis The Cardturner. Delacorte Press. 2010
-- Sachar Louis Small Steps. Random House Children's Books. 2006