Bestselling Young Adult Author Visiting Andover Middle Schools

ANDOVER, MA — The Andover Coalition for Education (ACE) has announced that New York Times bestselling author Gordon Korman will be visiting Andover Public Schools next week as part of the ACE's Middle School Library Author Series.

Korman is a young adult author of 100 books including "Schooled" (2012), "Restart" (2017), and the Masterminds series.

The author will visit the district's three middle schools from Oct. 12-14, discussing his career during whole school assemblies.

Korman will be at West Middle School from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Oct 12, Wood Hill Middle School from 9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. on Oct. 13, and at Doherty Middle School from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Oct. 14.

"The middle school years (are) the make-or-break years when it comes to galvanizing a student’s love of literature," The ACE said in a statement. "There is no better way to excite young readers than having their favorite author visit their very own school."

With the help of funding from an ACE grant, the middle school media faculty have organized visits from Korman and other prominent authors during the 2022-23 school year. The other authors scheduled to visit are: Kayla Miller (November 7,9,10) , Aisha Saeed (Dec. 5-7), Ellen Oh (Feb. 15-17) and Steve Sheinkin (June 1 and 2).

"Each middle school is incorporating the works of these authors into the curriculum, creating a rich learning experience and keeping the love of books alive for our APS students," the ACE said.

Korman has had multiple books reach No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and has received numerous honors, according to Scholastic Canada. His books have sold more than 30 million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages.

"I try to make my characters funny or exciting because writing a novel is almost like living with those characters for a few months," Korman told Scholastic Canada. "I certainly wouldn't want to spend so much time hanging out with boring characters — and I don't think anybody would enjoy reading about them."