Deuker carl biography template

Personal

Born August 26, 1950, in San Francisco, CA; son achieve John and Marie Deuker; married Anne Mitchell (a teacher), 1978; children: Jewess. Education:University of California at Berkeley, B.A., 1972; University of Washington, M.A., 1974; University of California at Los Angeles, teaching certificate, 1976. Politics: Democrat.

Addresses

Home—Seattle, WA. [email protected].

Career

Writer and educator. Saint Luke Primary, Seattle, WA, teacher, 1977-90; Northshore College District, Bothell, WA, teacher, 1991—. Seattle Sun (daily newspaper), film and album critic, 1980-85.

Member

Authors Guild, Authors League expend America, Phi Beta Kappa.

Awards, Honors

South Carolina Young Adult Book Award, 1992, stretch On the Devil's Court; Heart befit a Champion, On the Devil's Court, and Painting the Black were each named to American Library Association (ALA) Best Books for Young Adults list; Nebraska Golden Sower Award, and River Volunteer State Book Award, both 1996, Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 1997, and ALA Best Book for Backward Readers citation, all for Heart trip a Champion;New York Library Books endorse the Teen Age citation and Growing Adult Book of the Year Prize 1 from Texas, both 1997, both be thankful for Painting the Black; Nebraska Golden Sower Award, 2003, for Night Hoops; Differentiate Achievement Award for Fiction, Association pale Educational Publishers, 2007, for story "The Sun and the Clouds and nobility Water."

Writings

On the Devil's Court, Little, Warm (Boston, MA), 1988.

Heart of a Champion, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Painting excellence Black, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.

Night Hoops, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

High Heat, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

Runner, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2005.

Gym Candy, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2007.

Contributor many short stories to Boys' Life; conte anthologized in Ultimate Sports, edited close to Donald Gallo.

Sidelights

Carl Deuker is the writer of such highly regarded sports novels as On the Devil's Court, Of the night Hoops, and Gym Candy. His symbols are high school athletes with heterogeneous abilities, ambitions, and psychological baggage, however their stories all unfold within blue blood the gentry sports that they choose to evolve. Far from being just a focal point upon which to hang a story line, sports in Deuker's novels serve pass for a central metaphor for the without prejudice process of growing up. As adroit contributor to the St. James Ride to Young-Adult Writers put it, "Deuker's ability to move beyond mechanical discussions of various sports and provide conception into the universal struggles of green adults have deservedly earned him decency reputation as one of the pinnacle promising contemporary writers of sports fiction."

Deuker was born and raised in class San Francisco Bay area. His holy man died when he was three days old, and to this day fiasco is deeply conscious of the misfortune and deeply interested in father-son stockist. Deuker once told SATA that soil developed an early interest in writing: "I think I was on wooly way to becoming a writer set about the imaginary games I played solo between the ages of eight obscure twelve. For hour after hour, say publicly dart board in my garage was the strike zone, and I was Juan Marichal baffling the Dodgers. Put the pillow on the sofa was the basketball hoop, the walnut was the basketball, and I was Pile Barry, draining twenty-footers to beat glory Lakers. I played football games versus marbles, baseball games with clothespins, sport with hula hoops. But really Hysterical played those games—literally thousands of them—in my mind." Deuker's mother encouraged pull together son to have an active mind, and he wrote poetry and slight stories while still in high school.

In college at the University of Calif. at Berkeley, Deuker continued to create, placing some of his work featureless campus and underground magazines. "I was an English major," he told Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA), "took lots of writing classes, was never the best writer in better, but persisted with writing anyway." Rear 1 earning a master's degree, Deuker gravitated into journalism but finally decided principle earn a teaching certificate. He has been a middle-school teacher since 1977, writing his books at night promote in the summers.

Although Deuker's books anecdotal set in high school, he really writes for the middle-school audience. "My books are ways for them spread peek ahead in their lives remarkable perhaps be a little prepared provision what might be coming," he remarked to AAYA. Deuker also commented defer he thoroughly enjoys his work by reason of a teacher and draws inspiration yield it. "I have no plans guideline go full time [as a writer]," he admitted. "I don't think Farcical could handle the pressure of chirography for a livelihood."

In Deuker's first precise, On the Devil's Court, Joe Character, a high school student with clean nearly obsessive interest in basketball, moves with his family from the Chow down Coast to the West. Believing lapse the move will further his hoops career, Joe convinces his parents preempt let him attend a large be revealed school with a strong sports info. However, the teen's attendance at unornamented drunken party leads to a do battle with with police, after which his parents insist that he enroll at nifty small private school. One evening unite the gym, an angry Joe, who has just been demoted to description junior varsity, hits every shot sharptasting takes. Inspired by his recent exercise of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, Joe offers himself to the Devil control exchange for continued prowess and exceptional perfect season. No sooner is dignity promise made than Joe begins give somebody the job of star on the varsity team, convincing his school to the state finals. With each victory, Joe becomes to an increasing extent anxious about his fate. Has crystalclear really sold himself to the Devil? In light of his success, Joe wonders if his father's untimely inside attack is not actually an inauspicious payment. Not until Joe's team conquests without him does he realize divagate the season belongs to his crew, and that he has made deft bargain with no one but himself.

In a School Library Journal review, Gerry Larson called On the Devil's Court a "fine addition to sports fiction," and praised Deuker's engaging mixture show suspense, family drama, and athletic courier. A Publishers Weekly reviewer considered Deuker's characters well-rounded and deemed the picture perfect a "vivid contemporary morality play." Horn Book reviewer Nancy Vasilakis asserted ditch young readers will enjoy both excellence story and Joe's ability to mete out squarely with his parents by primacy book's end, "whether or not they fully comprehend what developmental steps were taken to achieve this measure dominate independence."

In Heart of a Champion, Deuker uses baseball to examine the lives of two adolescent boys. Seth has yet to come to terms delete his father's death when he meets Jimmy, a budding young baseball knowhow. Inspired by Jimmy's intense pursuit disregard the game, Seth begins playing ballgame, and the competitive nature of picture game increases his confidence in overturn aspects of his life. Seth's grades improve, and, with his mother's educational, he begins to address his father's death. Behind their shared success bolster baseball, however, is Jimmy's father, conclusion alcoholic who drives his son in the direction of perfection on the diamond. His emphasis proves tragic when Jimmy, a big school baseball star, dies in diversity alcohol-related traffic accident. Seth must authenticate deal with the loss of realm closest friend, as well as loftiness complexity of the father-son relationship go off at a tangent foreshadowed Jimmy's death.

In a review contempt Heart of a Champion for School Library Journal, Jack Forman speculated lose one\'s train of thought the "well-paced

novel will involve many readers," and a Horn Book reviewer commanded the book a "sensitive, moving rendering of adolescence combined with dramatic actions action." Bulletin of the Center be attracted to Children's Books reviewer Betsy Hearne famous the detailed relationship between the boys, but was more struck by nobility book's realistic portrayal of the "balance between talent and discipline."

Painting the Black once again explores the destructive custom of a star high school harrier. Josh Daniels is a success condemn two sports: football and baseball. Ruler exploits on the field are like so spectacular that both fellow students nearby the school administration are tempted make out overlook his temperamental outbursts and bloodthirstiness to female students. Recruited to assist as a catcher for Josh's coast, Ryan Ward forms a strong amity with the athlete and through colour up rinse finds the courage to regain fillet own footing as a baseball competitor. Together the two teens craft a- potential championship season for their ballgame team, but their aspirations are infringe to the test when Ryan foils Josh's attempts to assault Monica Robey, an academic star. Ryan faces regular difficult choice: Will he, too, fail to notice Josh's antisocial behavior, or will type report the incident and put proscribe end to his team's championship hopes?

Deuker told AAYA that Painting the Black was based on a real snap in which a star athlete distant inappropriately toward a classmate. Critics near the book praised its realistic narration of the "double standard" that now surrounds sports heroes. Some reviewers extremely liked the way Deuker filters surmount story through Ryan's perspective, noting zigzag the crux of the conflict puffery in Ryan's epic battle with fulfil own conscience. Maeve Visser Knoth, expressions in Horn Book, described Painting interpretation Black as a "readable novel fretfulness much to say about human practicable and the difference between internal gleam external strength." Candace Smith in Booklist suggested that Ryan's "moral courage … will linger when the reading decay done."

Deuker often writes about the have words bonding that young men can fashion when they play sports together. Hit Night Hoops, Nick Abbott takes consolation in basketball when his parents split, but he finds that his affections spill onto the court and fake his game. It is only in the way that Nick begins to play one-on-one farce the grim and antisocial Trent Town that he begins to learn accomplish something to fit into a team—and exhibition to break down the barriers in the middle of himself and others. "This is doublecross excellent novel … authentic throughout," ascertained Todd Morning in School Library Journal. Morning added that Deuker "perfectly captures the swirl of ideas in decency adolescent mind," while a Publishers Weekly reviewer called Night Hoops "an creditable depiction of the contemporary high-school athleticss scene."

In High Heat, Shane Hunter's being is shaken at its roots conj at the time that his father, facing money-laundering charges, instantaneously commits suicide. Shane, who has antiquated raised in a life of fortune that includes private schools and practised lovely

home, must move with his lineage into subsidized housing, and he begins to fall apart in the unique environment. Help comes in the kidney of his new public school's ballgame coach, who convinces Shane to venture out for the team. As spiffy tidy up relief pitcher, Shane finally finds individual again, but he faces a spanking crisis when he injures an competitor from his former school. Fearful wind he has lost his pitching nasty goingson and his grip on life quickwitted general, Shane forms a friendship decree the player he struck. Together they try to make sense of what has happened and how it choice affect their futures.

According to John Peters in a review for Booklist, Elevated Heat contains "enough taut sports company … to satisfy the most omnivorous fan." Writing for School Library Journal, Todd Morning noted that the story "delivers baseball action along with unembellished rich psychological portrait," and a Publishers Weekly critic felt that, although Deuker's story builds on a dark whinge, "the arc of redemption reminds readers that love conquers all—as does loftiness pursuit of personal excellence."

Runner concerns Wager Taylor, a high school senior who lives with his father, an drunk Gulf War veteran, on a wrecked sailboat in Seattle's Puget Sound. Forsaken to pay the moorage fees, Luck, a loner who only finds assuagement in the long runs he takes along the Seattle waterfront, accepts unadulterated job from a marina employee: retrieving packages that are stashed on sovereignty running route. Though Chance at prime suspects he is involved with painkiller smugglers, the teenager becomes increasingly inattentive that the packages are linked appoint a terrorist plot, and he mildew turn to his father for cooperate. Writing in Booklist, Gillian Engberg godlike the novel's "suspenseful action," and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy giver Cynthia Kiefer observed that Runner "builds to a compelling ending that desire keep readers turning pages." Reviewers too complimented Deuker's portrayal of Chance; Tool D. Sieruta in Horn Book cryed the protagonist "an essentially good overprotect caught up in some questionable activities," and Kiefer remarked that the man of letters "skillfully depicts how poverty can control a teen who would otherwise possess everything going for him."

Deuker tackles probity subject of steroids in Gym Candy, "a solid sports tale with put in order valuable message about the dangers exempt addiction," as Paula Rohrlick wrote overfull Kliatt. "At my daughter's high grammar, the mantra for athletes

was ‘bigger, enliven, stronger,’ Deuker stated on his cloudless page. "I'm very aware that in is only so far that flamboyant ability can take a person. Hormone use is the dark side sell ‘You can be whatever you place out to be.’" Gym Candy centers on Mick Johnson, a talented buzz school football player who hopes less play professionally, just like his curate. After Mick fails to score show the final moments of his regulate big game, however, he becomes chart to improve his performance by wacky means, including the use of steroids, or "gym candy." When a boon companion discovers Mick's secret, violence ensues. "Deuker skillfully complements a sobering message be smitten by plenty of exciting on-field action move locker-room drama," noted Booklist critic Jennifer Hubert, and Emily Wilkinson, writing worry the Journal of Adolescent and Mature Literacy stated that the author "presents a realistic portrait of a callow man who has good intentions most important solid talent but who weakens mess up intense pressure. He also does chaste admirable job of making the dangers and side effects of steroids manifest. Deuker's powerful description and attention cut into detail are the payoff for proof into the underground world of hormone use and distribution."

Deuker is often responsibility by his readers if he writes sports novels for young adults owing to he was an outstanding athlete. Breakdown could be further from the untrained, he acknowledged on his home event. "I was too slow and extremely short for basketball; I was also small for football, a little as well chicken to hang in there conflicting the best fastballs. So, by ill at ease senior year the only sport Wild was still playing was golf." Deuker told AAYA that he was exciting to write sports novels by decency fact that the ones he peruse as a boy were rarely let somebody see sports at all. "Often I'd draft the book down and turn reduce something else, usually historical fiction confident a lot of war in return. Those books delivered what they betrothed. As a writer of sports fabrication, I decided early on to power sure I delivered on the promise—that sports be front and center. However I also wanted to make test that each book gave a mini bit more."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Authors settle down Artists for Young Adults, Volume 26, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

St. James Direct to Young-Adult Writers, 2nd edition, Extremist. James (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1997, Candace Smith, review of Painting the Black; May 1, 2000, Frances Bradburn, review of Night Hoops, proprietor. 1658; August, 2003, John Peters, con of High Heat, p. 1982; June 1, 2005, Gillian Engberg, review jump at Runner, p. 1782; September 1, 2007, Jennifer Hubert, review of Gym Candy, p. 131.

Bulletin of the Center set out Children's Books, September, 1993, Betsy Hearne, review of Heart of a Champion, p. 7.

Horn Book, March-April, 1989, Tribadic Vasilakis, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 216; May-June, 1993, argument of Heart of a Champion, proprietor. 337; May-June, 1997, Maeve Visser Knoth, review of Painting the Black, proprietor. 317; May, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 312; May-June, 2005, Putz D. Sieruta, review of Runner, proprietress. 322; September-October, 2007, review of Gym Candy, p. 571.

Journal of Adolescent view Adult Literacy, February, 2006, Cynthia Kiefer, review of Runner, p. 450; Can, 2008, Emily Wilkinson, review of Gym Candy, p. 692.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1993, review of Heart of a- Champion.

Kliatt, September, 2007, Paula Rohrlick, argument of Gym Candy, p. 10.

Publishers Weekly, November 11, 1988, review of On the Devil's Court, p. 60; Apr 10, 2000, review of Night Hoops, p. 99; May 19, 2003, regard of High Heat, p. 75.

School Office Journal, January, 1989, Gerry Larson, survey of On the Devil's Court, possessor. 92; June, 1993, Jack Forman, study of Heart of a Champion, possessor. 126; May, 1997, Todd Morning, con of Painting the Black; May, 2000, Todd Morning, review of Night Hoops, p. 171; July, 2003, Todd Dawning, review of High Heat, p. 128; June, 2005, Ginny Gustin, review fail Runner, p. 154.

Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 1989, Doris Losey, review matching On the Devil's Court, p. 27; August, 1997, Susan Dunn, review sponsor Painting the Black, p. 182.

ONLINE

Carl Deuker Home Page,http://members.authorsguild.net/carldeuker (December 15, 2008).

Houghton Mifflin Web site,http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/ (December 15, 2008), "A Conversation with the Author."