When I was in seventh grade, I learned how to open my locker, had a major crush on a boy named Bill, and wrote a bunch of book reports.
When Gordon Korman was in seventh grade, he wrote a book. Two years later, it was published.
It all started in February of seventh grade, when Korman's English teacher was replaced by the track-and-field coach. The coach announced that the kids in the class would each spend the rest of the school year writing a book. Although most of the kids in the class were flummoxed by the assignment, Korman soon settled on writing a book about boys at a boarding school -- that way he didn't have to add too many characters, like parents and such. The story soon began to take shape.
"It felt natural -- like something I was always meant to do," he wrote in Hope Wins: A Collection of Inspiring Stories for Young Readers.
By the end of the school year, Korman had written This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall! He earned an A+ on the assignment, and all the kids in his class liked it. As the class monitor for Scholastic Book Clubs, he decided to send the manuscript to Scholastic to see if it was good enough to be published. It was. The book came out during his freshman year of high school. Before he graduated, Korman wrote four more books, including books in what is now known as the "Bruno & Boots" series about Macdonald Hall.
This summer, Korman's 100th book was released. The Fort is the story of five boys who literally stumble across the bomb shelter of a long-dead millionaire. The shelter gives them a place to hang out -- and one of them a place to live.
In between, Korman has written books that stand alone, as well as several other series, including "Masterminds," "Swindle," "Ungifted" and "Nose Pickers." He has sold more than 30 million books. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Richland Library has more than 60 books written by Korman. Try one of these:
A Collection of Inspiring Stories for Young Readers
Published in 2022
In this collection of personal stories and essays, award-winning and best-selling authors show that hope can live anywhere, even during the darkest of times.
Due to an administrative mix-up, troublemaker Donovan Curtis is sent to the Academy of Scholastic Distinction, a special program for gifted and talented students, after pulling a major prank at middle school.
Roommates Bruno and Boots find obstacles in their way as they attempt to lead the Macdonald Hall Zucchini Warriors to a victorious football season and earn the reward of a new recreation center.
Five middle schoolers find a fully stocked bomb shelter constructed decades ago in the local woods by an eccentric tycoon and lost until a hurricane exposes the entrance. So, how to keep the hideout secret from interfering grown-ups--and, more particularly, from scary teen psychopath, Jaeger Devlin.
Told in different voices, on Centerlight Island, halfway between the United States and Canada, middle-schoolers Keenan and ZeeBee team up to seek gold rumored to be hidden there a famous gangster.
After years of attending a school for gifted children, Noah finds himself at a normal school where he immediately ends up on the wrong side of a cheerleading captain and a jock.