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David A. Adler
I write both fiction and non-fiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later. Of course, since I'll be spending a lot of time with each main character, why not have him or her be someone I like? Andy Russell is based, loosely, on a beloved member of my family. He's fun... show more



I write both fiction and non-fiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later. Of course, since I'll be spending a lot of time with each main character, why not have him or her be someone I like? Andy Russell is based, loosely, on a beloved member of my family. He's fun to write about and the boy who inspired the character is even more fun to know. Cam Jansen is based even more loosely on a classmate of mine in the first grade whom we all envied because we thought he had a photographic memory. Now, especially when my children remind me of some promise they said I made, I really envy Cam's amazing memory. I have really enjoyed writing about Cam Jansen and her many adventures. For my books of non-fiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. My first biography was Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir. To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedia. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there. I've written many other biographies, including books about Martin Luther King, Jr; George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; Helen Keller; Harriet Tubman; Anne Frank; and many others in my Picture Book Biography series. I've been a Yankee and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades so I wrote Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man. It's more the story of his great courage than his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig. I am working now on another book about a courageous man, Janusz Korczak. My book One Yellow Daffodil is fiction, too, but it's based on scores of interviews I did with Holocaust survivors for my books We Remember the Holocaust, Child of the Warsaw Ghetto, The Number on My Grandfather's Arm, and Hiding from the Nazis. The stories I heard were compelling. One Yellow Daffodil is both a look to the past and to the future, and expresses my belief in the great spirit and strength of our children. I love math and was a math teacher for many years, so it was fun for me to write several math books including Fraction Fun, Calculator Riddles, and Shape Up! Fun with Triangles and Other Polygons. In my office I have this sign, "Don't Think. Just Write!" and that's how I work. I try not to worry about each word, even each sentence or paragraph. For me stories evolve. Writing is a process. I rewrite each sentence, each manuscript, many times. And I work with my editors. I look forward to their suggestions, their help in the almost endless rewrite process. Well, it's time to get back to dreaming, and to writing, my dream of a job. David A. Adler is the author of more than 175 children's books, including the Young Cam Jansen series. He lives in Woodmere, New York.

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Birth date: April 10, 1947
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Community Reviews
Reading For The Heck Of It
Reading For The Heck Of It rated it 7 years ago
When I was a child we had a cat which my mom christened Golda My Ear (he was a yellow tabby) which was a clever play on words that went completely over my head. Therefore, when I came across a book while shelving entitled Golda Meir: A Strong, Determined Leader it felt like fate was telling me to ta...
An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge
An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge rated it 8 years ago
This is my first Cam Jansen. The nine-year-old likes her and her photographic memory, so I picked this one up to see what the deal is. I found the ending slightly disappointing. For a mystery series the solution doesn't take up a lot of space. I did enjoy the deductions in the middle of the myster...
Say What?
Say What? rated it 9 years ago
I was really excited when I saw these Cam Jansen books. Cam was my hero as a child. All of her adventures and most of all her photographic memory! These book would be great for third grade and for the classroom library. It would even be fun to use to talk about prediction. Maybe have student listen ...
Amara's Eden
Amara's Eden rated it 11 years ago
In Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the U.F.O., Jennifer "The Camera" Jones's best friend, Eric Shelton, is looking for an awesome subject to photograph for the first annual Junior News Photography Contest. He thinks he has a great shot when Cam rescues a kitten from a tree, but something even bigger h...
Amara's Eden
Amara's Eden rated it 11 years ago
Before A to Z Mysteries, before Jigsaw Jones, before Geronimo Stilton and so many of the other "mysteries for kids" series, there was Cam Jansen, the girl with the "photographic memory". Now, regardless of whether such memory recall abilities are authentic in real life, Cam Jansen definitely has a g...
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