Todd Strasser
Todd Strasser (born May 5, 1950 in New York, New York) is an American author of more than 130 young-adult and middle grade novels and novelizations, some written under the pen name Morton Rhue.
After studying literature in college, Strasser earned his living working as a journalist, also operated his own fortune cookie company, producing cookies under the "Dr. Wing Tip Shoo" brand name. He is the father of two children, and an avid tennis player and surfer.
Strasser has written many award-winning novels for young adults and teens, picking controversial themes like Nazism, bullying at schools, homelessness, school shootings, and sexuality. His works include Give A Boy A Gun, Boot Camp, and Asphalt Tribe. His most famous work The Wave, is a novelization of a social experiment that happened in Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California in 1967, and was made into a television movie in 1981 and a popular feature film in 2008. This book has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is read in schools around the world.
Strasser is also the author of the Time Zone High trilogy, How I Changed My Life, How I Created My Perfect Prom Date, and How I Spent My Last Night On Earth. How I Created My Perfect Prom Date was adapted for the feature film Drive Me Crazy starring Adrian Grenier and Melissa Joan Hart.
Other novels for young adults include The Accident, which became the television movie Over the Limit, as well as Angel Dust Blues, Friends Till The End, and A Very Touchy Subject. The latter also became a television movie, entitled Can A Guy Say No?
Strasser has also written a number of young adult series, including Impact Zone (about surfing), Drift X (about drift car competitions), and Here Comes Heavenly (about a punk nanny with magical powers).
His books for middle-graders include CON-fidence, The Diving Bell, and Abe Lincoln for Class President. His series for middle graders include the very popular 17-book Help! I'm Trapped... collection, as well as the Don't Get Caught, Against the Odds, and Camp Run-A-Muck books. Most recently he wrote "Is That A Dead Dog in Your Locker?" "Is That A Sick Cat in Your Backpack?" Is That a Glow-In-The-Dark Bunny in Your Pillow Case?" and "Is That An Angry Penguin in Your Gym Bag?"
Strasser has also published articles and short stories in The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times.
Can't Get There From Here
Can't Get There From Here is about a group of street children in New York. The children have to struggle to get enough food, to find a place to sleep, not to freeze, in short: to survive. Many young adult readers of the book were impressed after the lecture. They stressed its realistic descriptions. Many young people talk about the harsh reality of urchins which is revealed to them in this book, but is normally an unknown social reality.This captivating story has influenced many people to do something about the harsh reality of the poverty problem right now.
Boot Camp
In the book Boot Camp which was published in Germany in 2006, troublesome youths learn to be obedient. This book is filled with the adventure, escaping, by the three teens in a tight bond, trying to survive.Many are angry that the book has not been considered into being made a motion picture
Give a Boy a Gun
The book Give a Boy a Gun was written as a series of interviews from Middletown High School, which was a recent location of a school shooting. Teachers, friends, and students give their versions of their time with Brendan and Gary, the two perpetrators of the shooting, from the beginning of ninth and tenth grades, and the day of the attack. It was recently adapted into a play by Elena M. Garcia.
Film novelizations
Strasser has written many film novelizations, including Home Alone, Home Alone 2, The Pagemaster, Free Willy, The Good Son, and The Beverly Hillbillies.
Help! I'm Trapped...
He is also popular for the Help! I'm Trapped... series of sixteen books written 1994-2001.
Other books
Strasser has also written separate stories including Kidnap Kids (about two siblings who kidnap their parents}, Y2K-9 (about a dog who gets his five chatroom friends to save the world from Y2K-9} and Hey Dad! Get a Life.
List of works
- The Wave. New York: Dell, 1981; Laurel Leaf/Dell, 1985; Puffin Books 1988, ISBN 0-14-037188-5. Also made into an ABC television show (1981) and a German movie (2008)
- "Young Adult Books: Stalking the Teen." Horn Book Magazine, vol. 62, no. 2 (1986, Mar.-Apr.), pp. 236-239.
- The Accident. New York: Delacorte, 1988. Adapted for television in the ABC Afterschool Special Over the Limit (1990).
- How I Created my Perfect Prom Date. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. Originally published as Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date (1996) and later adapted into the film Drive Me Crazy (1999).
- Give a Boy a Gun. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000; Simon Pulse 2002, ISBN 0-689-84893-5
- Thief of Dreams, Putnam Juvenile 2003, ISBN 0-399-23135-8
- Can't Get There from Here, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-689-84169-8
- Slide or Die. Simon Pulse 2006, ISBN 1-4169-0581-2 Drift X Series
- Battle Drift
- Sidewayz Glory
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