Louis Sachar (pronounced Sacker) is an American author of children's books. He was born on March 20, 1954, in East Meadow, New York. When he was nine, he moved to Tustin, California.

He went to college at the University of California at Berkeley and graduated in 1976 with a degree in economics. The next year, he wrote his first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School. At the time, he was working at a sweater warehouse during the day and wrote at night. Almost a year later, he was fired from the job and decided to go to law school.

He attended Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and graduated in 1980. For the next eight years, he worked part-time as a lawyer while continuing to write.

Sachar is best known for the Wayside School series and the novel Holes. Holes won the 1998 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 1999 Newbery Medal for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." In 2013, it was ranked sixth among all children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.