It’s the birthday of children’s book author Louis Sachar (b. 1954), best known and loved for his wacky Wayside School series and for Holes, which won a ton of awards including the 1999 Newbery Medal and which was made into a movie in 2003 starring Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight.

Sachar was born in East Meadow, New York, and raised there until he was nine; his dad worked in the Empire State Building at the time, which Sachar cites as possible inspiration for the 30-story Wayside School (it has one classroom per floor, except for the 19th floor, which doesn’t exist. Mostly.). Then Sachar’s family moved to Tustin, California. Sachar started college at Antioch College in Ohio but returned home when his father died during his first semester. When he went back to college, it was to study economics at UC Berkeley, but things took an unlikely and significant turn of events: he signed up to be a teacher’s aide at nearby Hillside Elementary in exchange for three college credits. Sachar helped out in class and was also the recess supervisor, or “Louis the Yard Teacher” (and if you’ve read the Wayside books then you just got chills). He loved the experience, and after college wrote Sideways Stories from Wayside School (1978), in which every student was based on a real student he knew from Hillside.

While writing Sideways Stories, Sachar worked at a sweater warehouse but was fired for insufficient sweater enthusiasm. (Fair enough.) Sachar entered law school just as Sideways Stories was being published, finished law school in 1980 and passed the bar, and by 1989 was selling enough children’s books that he could quit law. (I think we’re all relieved.)

In addition to the Wayside School series, the Marvin Redpost series, and the Holes series (there are two novels following the original), Sachar has written a number of stand-alone novels, including Sixth Grade Secrets (1987), There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom (1987), and most recently Fuzzy Mud (2010), a mystery/thriller about a couple of kids who encounter a dangerous slime created by biotech engineers.

Sachar spends no more than two hours a day writing. He’s an avid bridge player and plays in national tournaments, once playing against Bill Gates; this interest inspired Sachar’s novel The Cardturner, his personal favorite. Sachar has been married since 1985 to Carla Askew, a former school counselor, and their daughter is a zoologist.

Have a brilliant Wednesday, read or reread the Wayside School books for goodness’ sake, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.