Gordon Korman

Gordon Korman (born October 23, 1963) is a Canadian American author who has written over 80 children's and young adult fiction books. A number one The New York Times Best Selling author, he has sold more than 17 million books.

Korman was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he lived until 1970. He grew up in Thornhill, Ontario just north of Toronto, Ontario and attended German Mills Public School and public high school at Thornlea Secondary School in Thornhill, Ontario. He then moved to the United States to attend college at New York University where he studied film and film-writing. Korman received a BFA from New York University in 1985; with a degree in dramatic visual writing and a minor in motion picture and television.

Korman wrote his first book when he was 12 years old. While attending German Mills Public School, his seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Hamilton, was a track and field coach who found himself teaching English for the first time. Hamilton required students to write a novel during the semester, and this assignment became the manuscript for Korman's first book, This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall, the first book in his Macdonald Hall (Bruno and Boots) series.

Korman was the Scholastic Arrow Book Club monitor for the class; after completing the assignment, he mailed his manuscript to Scholastic. This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall was published by Scholastic Press in 1978 when Korman was only 14 years old. Before graduating from high school in Thornhill, Ontario, Korman wrote and published five books.

Korman has written more than 85 books which have sold more than 17 million copies in a career that has spanned three decades.

Non-series books

Series

The Monday Night Football Club series was adapted as the Disney Channel TV series The Jersey, which ran for four years between 1999 and 2004.

Swindle was adapted into a movie that aired on "Nickelodeon" in 2013.

The Macdonald Hall series has a TV adaptation of one of the books, called "Bruno and Boots Go Jump in the Pool". It stars Jonny Gray, Callan Potter and Peter Keleghan. It aired April 1, April Fools' Day, on the Canadian network YTV.

Other optioned books include No Coins, Please, I Want to Go Home, the Island trilogy and The Twinkie Squad.

• Air Canada Award for promising authors in Canada, at age 17
• 1991 Manitoba Young Reader's Choice Award (chosen by Manitoba schoolchildren), The Zucchini Warriors (1988)
• 2001 American Library Association Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, Losing Joe's Place (1990)
• 1999 ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, The Toilet Paper Tigers (1993)
• 2001 ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, The Chicken Doesn't Skate (1993)
• 2003 ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, Son of the Mob (2002)
• 2003 Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award (chosen by Pacific NW schoolchildren), Intermediate Division (Grades 7–9), No More Dead Dogs (2003)
• 2004 ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Jake Reinvented (2003)
• 2005 PNLA Young Reader's Choice Award – Intermediate, Son of the Mob (2002)
• 2010 PNLA Young Reader's Choice Award – Intermediate, Schooled (2007)
• 2010–2011 Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award (by vote of Arkansas schoolchildren), Swindle (2008)
• 2011–2012 Charlie May Simon Award, Zoobreak (2009)
• 2016 Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature

• "Manitoba Young Reader's Choice Award" [1991–2004]. Learning with Literature in the Canadian Elementary Classroom (learningwithliterature.ualberta.ca). 2004. Retrieved February 20, 2014. Externally archived 2006-05-22.
• ^ "2001 Popular Paperbacks". YALSA. ALA. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011. 
• "1999 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). American Library Association (ALA). Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011. 
• "2003 Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults: Annotated List". YALSA. ALA. Archived from the original on January 17, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011. 
• ^ "YRCA Past Winners". Pacific Northwest Library Association (PNLA). Retrieved February 20, 2014. 
• "Best Books for Young Adults Annotated List 2004". YALSA. ALA. Archived from the original on January 17, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011. 
• ^ "Charlie May Simon Award (Grades 4–6)". Arkansas State Library (ASL). Retrieved February 20, 2014. 
• ^ "Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award Winners, 1971 to Current". ASL. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
• James D. Watts Jr., "Author Gordon Korman's career started in seventh grade", Tulsa World, May 5, 2016.