Dan Gutman

Dan Gutman

Gutman speaking in South Orange, NJ, 2011
Born (1955-10-19) October 19, 1955
New York City, New York, USA
Occupation Writer
Nationality American
Genre Children's historical fiction, historical fantasy, humor
Subject Video games, baseball history, sports biography
Website
dangutman.com

Daniel Edward "Dan" Gutman (born October 19, 1955) is an American writer, primarily of children's fiction.

His best known works are the Baseball Card Adventures children's book series which started off with Honus & Me. Each book in the series revolves around a child named Joe Stoshack (Nicknamed "Stosh") traveling back in time to meet a baseball legend; the first work is based on the premise of Stosh finding a Honus Wagner T206 baseball card in the attic of his neighbor. Further books in the series feature Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Dorothy Maguire, Abner Doubleday, Satchel Paige, Jim Thorpe, Ray Chapman, Roberto Clemente, Ted Williams, and Willie Mays. The original story, Honus & Me, was made into a Turner Network Television made-for-TV picture entitled The Winning Season, starring Matthew Modine.[1]

Gutman was born in New York City.[2] He was raised in Newark, New Jersey – by his mother alone from age 12, when his father abandoned them.[3] He graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in psychology and started graduate school in that field.[3] He lives in New York City with his wife and has two grown children.

Magazines

Gutman was a magazine editor and columnist. While editor in chief of Stag, he became a fan of videogames and decided to start a video game magazine. Gutman became the first employee of Video Game Player (later Computer Games) in 1982.[4] He said, "I started a magazine about video games and suddenly I was an expert in video games. I started writing about them and computers. All for grownups. It took me a long time to realize that writing for grownups was not my thing. It took me a long time to realize that what I was good at was writing for kids."[5] His column appeared regularly in various computer-related magazines, such as Genie Livewire.

Works

Dan Gutman has written over twenty books in the My Weird School series[6] illustrated by Jim Paillot, plus related series. He has also written the Million Dollar series, featuring children who get a chance to win a million dollars in various sporting events; the Genius Files series, which was on the New York Times best seller list at number 10; Tales from the Sandlot, fantasy sports stories; the Funny Boy series about an alien boy exiled to Earth; and the Baseball Card Adventures series illustrated by Steve Chorney, about Joe Stoshack, a boy who travels in time upon touching old photographs or baseball cards. There have also been two about Judson Moon, who became President of the United States at 12, two about Qwerty Stevens and his time machine, and two about some children who use a machine to do their homework. His stand-alone novels include They Came from Center Field, about some extraterrestrials who want to learn baseball, Johnny Hangtime, about a young movie stuntman, and Race for the Sky, a historical novel in diary form about the Wright brothers.[7]

Gutman's 1996 novel The Kid Who Ran for President was compared to the Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign by comedian John Oliver during an August 2016 segment of the show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As a result, the book jumped in sales.[8]

Selected bibliography

The Kid (1996-1999)

Baseball Card Adventures (1997–2015)

Million Dollar (1997-2006)

My Weird School (2004)

Qwerty Stevens (2002-2005)

References

  1. ↑ "The Winning Season". TNT. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
  2. ↑ Author's website: About Dan
  3. 1 2 Nussbaum, Debra. "IN PERSON; His Inner Child Comes Out to Play". The New York Times. September 14, 2003.
  4. ↑ Gutman, Dan (December 1987). "The Fall And Rise Of Computer Games". Compute!'s Apple Applications. p. 64. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  5. ↑ ""Live Online Interview with Dan Gutman"". Archived from the original on October 20, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2013. . April 23, 2004. Election 2004: Kid Reporters Cover the Primaries. Scholastic Teachers (teacher.scholastic.com). Archived 2013-10-20. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  6. ↑ LaGorce, Tammy. "Neighborhood Storytelling". The New York Times. July 13, 2008. Retrieved July 29, 2008.
      "Dan Gutman, 52, of Haddonfield, N.J., and the author of sports-themed books and the 'My Weird School' series, with titles like Mrs. Dole Is Out of Control, for HarperCollins, said he visited up to 60 schools a year to gather material, including the Scotch Plains Fanwood school district."
  7. ↑ Dan Gutman at Fantastic Fiction
  8. ↑ Schneider, Michael (August 22, 2016). "'Last Week Tonight': John Oliver Turned a 20-Year-Old Kids' Book with 'Startling Parallels' to Trump into a Bestseller". Retrieved August 24, 2016.

External links

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