SOURCE CITATION
"David A. Adler." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Prolific author David A. Adler has produced a wide range of work for children--from picture books and juvenile adventure stories to biographies and nonfiction volumes on such topics as science, history, math, and holidays. "Because of the diversity of the things I write," Adler once revealed, "I am able to vary my work even in a single day, from doing research on a nonfiction book to writing fiction to creating a silly riddle or poem."

Adler still resides in the same neighborhood in which he grew up. As he told MAICYA, "Some few years ago I was at Open School Night for my middle son. His fourth grade teacher was the same one my eldest son had seven years earlier and the same teacher I had some time in the 1950s. The teacher looked at me, smiled, and then told the roomful of parents, 'A long time ago, when I just started teaching, David was in my class.' She smiled again and said, 'I went to the principal and asked, "What should I do with Adler? He's always dreaming." "Leave him alone," the principal answered. "Maybe one day he'll be a writer."' I've always been a dreamer."

Adler began creating books for children while pursuing doctoral studies in the early 1970s. Adler commented that his first book, A Little at a Time, was "the result of sheer inspiration and very little perspiration; I felt as if I was a conduit for a wonderful idea." Once the book was accepted by Random House for publication, Adler, a math teacher at the time, began writing math books for young readers on topics such as Roman numerals and dimensions. In 1977, when Adler and his wife had their first child, Adler decided to stay home with his son and write whenever the baby napped. "I was shunned in the playground," Adler related, "and even yelled at by an older woman I didn't know. She told me I should be at work and my wife should be at home. But I was at work, and working very hard."

During his writing career Adler has penned more than one hundred and fifty books, including such award-winning titles as Our Golda: The Story of Golda Meir and The Number on My Grandfather's Arm as well as the successful "Cam Jansen" mystery series, featuring a ten-year-old female detective with a photographic memory (Adler also has written books for beginning readers featuring Cam at a slightly younger age), and other lighthearted fiction series. Adler once commented, "I find my fiction to be a wonderful release from all the painstaking research I must do for nonfiction, which is why I try to alternate between fiction and nonfiction. I have real fun with the Cam Jansen books. She is such a delightful character, and while feminists haven't focused too much attention on her, I should note that Cam's sense of adventure and her headstrong, fearless nature are certainly different than how ten-year-old girls were portrayed in earlier books for children."

Adler explained regarding his other work, "The main character in the book Benny, Benny Baseball Nut is based on one of my sons, (and) the characters in the Andy Russell books another son. He is an interesting boy with interesting questions such as, 'Daddy, what if the Wright brothers had been Siamese twins, what would the cockpit of an airplane look like now?' The other members of the family in the Andy Russell books are based on our family. The baby born in It's a Baby, Andy Russell is based on my youngest son."

One of Adler's better-known nonfiction works is We Remember the Holocaust, a book composed of historical commentary, photographs, and interviews and recollections from survivors of the Nazi death camps in World War II. He has dealt with the Holocaust in several other books, including Hilde and Eli, Children of the Holocaust, Child of the Warsaw Ghetto, Hiding from the Nazis, and A Picture Book of Anne Frank. A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the Anne Frank biography "balances candor with discretion" and that its subject "emerges . . . poignantly." Adler's biographies deal with a wide variety of figures: sports heroes such as Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, and Gertrude Ederle; U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy; political and social activists including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Sojourner Truth; inventor Thomas Alva Edison; and explorer Christopher Columbus. They have prompted comments from reviewers such as "an exciting story, well told" from a Publishers Weekly critic on America's Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle.

Adler once commented, "The picture book biographies must be short, but that makes them very difficult to write. In my biography of Simon Bolivar, for example, the young reader must first know something about the history of South America. But in a picture book, of course, there is no room for a preface, so all the history had to be woven in with the story of Bolivar's life and all within fifteen hundred words. In my biography of Anne Frank, I needed to write about Germany's problems following the First World War, the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, the refusal of the world to accept refugees of extreme persecution, vital information about the Second World War, and the horrible truth about the death camps. I needed to do all that and still keep the book focused on the life and diary of Anne Frank, all for relatively young children, and all within fifteen hundred words."

As Adler revealed to MAICYA, "My first middle-grade biography, B. Franklin, Printer, was just published. For my research I read hundreds of issues of Colonial newspapers. I found them fascinating. I included in the book many excerpts from those newspapers including first-hand accounts of the first shots of the Revolution. I am now beginning work on another middle-grade biography. I am also at work on a middle-grade mystery set in the early 1940s with a mix of history and old-time radio."

As busy as his work keeps him, Adler once remarked that he always makes time for his priorities: "I am pleased that the flexibility of my schedule allows me plenty of time to be with my family." Flexibility, however, is not writing's only attraction for him. "I love my work," he said. "It allows me to pursue my many interests." As he told MAICYA, "I feel very fortunate that I can indulge my interests and call it work."

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born April 10, 1947, in New York, NY; son of Sidney G. (a teacher) and Betty (a social worker; maiden name, Straus) Adler; married Renee Hamada (a psychologist), April 8, 1973; children: three. Avocation: Travel, reading, photography, political memorabilia, baseball, art. Education: Queens College of the City University of New York, B.A., 1968; New York University, M.B.A., 1971; doctoral study, Religion: Jewish. Memberships: Society of Children's Book Writers, PEN, Authors Guild. Addresses: Agent--c/o Writers House, 21 West 26th St., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER
Math teacher in New York, NY, 1968-77; children's author, 1972--; Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, PA, senior editor of books for young readers, 1979-91. Professional artist whose drawings and cartoons have appeared in magazines and newspapers.