Louis Sachar, March 20, 1954 - Louis Sachar was born March 20, 1954, in East Meadow, New York. At the age of nine, his family moved to Tustin, California. Sachar attended the University of California, at Berkeley. During his senior year there, he helped out at Hillside Elementary School. It was his experience there that led to his first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, written in 1976. After college, he worked for a while in a sweater warehouse in Norwalk, Connecticut, and wrote at night. Then he went to law school, and his first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, was accepted for publication during his first week of school. After graduating from Berkeley, Sachar attended Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, graduating in 1980. He worked part-time as a lawyer for eight years as I continued to write childrens books, becoming a full-time writer in 1989 Sideways Stories from Wayside School was named a 1979 Childrens Choice Book by a joint committee of the International Reading Association and the Childrens Book Council. He has also won state awards which were voted upon by children. Sachar is a member of the Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators and the Authors Guild