User:Propaniac/bsc/Peter Lerangis

Peter Lerangis is one of the ghostwriters for the Baby-sitters Club books. He is the most prolific of the ghostwriters, having written over forty books among the various BSC series.

Lerangis's other work includes the historical novel Smiler's Bones, the Drama Club series, the Spy X series, the Watchers series, the Abracadabra series, and the Antarctica two-book adventure, as well ghostwriting for series such as the Three Investigators, the Hardy Boys, and Sweet Valley Twins. He has also written novels based on film screenplays, including The Sixth Sense, Sleepy Hollow, Beauty and the Beast, and Surf Ninjas. As a ghostwriter, he has been published under the name A. L. Singer.

Lerangis was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Freeport, New York on Long Island. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in biochemistry, while singing with and musically directing the a cappella group the Harvard Krokodiloes, before moving to New York. He worked there as an actor and freelance copy editor for eight years before becoming an author.

In 2003, Lerangis was chosen by First Lady Laura Bush to accompany her to the first Russian Book Festival, hosted by Russian First Lady Lyudmila Putina in Moscow. Authors R. L. Stine (Goosebumps) and Marc Brown (the Arthur the Aardvark series) also made the trip with Bush.

Also in 2003, Lerangis was commissioned by the United Kingdom branch of Scholastic to write X-Isle, one of four books that would relaunch the Point Horror series there. A sequel, Return to X-Isle, was published in 2004.

In 2007, Scholastic announced the launch of a new historical mystery series called The 39 Clues, intended to become a franchise. Lerangis will be writing the third book in the series, to be published in 2008. The first, second and fourth books will be written by Rick Riordan, Gordon Korman and Jude Watson.

Lerangis lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, and their sons Nick and Joe.

Awards
Last Stop, the first book in Lerangis's science fiction/mystery series Watchers, was selected by the American Library Association as a 1999 Best Book for Reluctant Readers.

War, the fourth book in the series Watchers, was selected by the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council as a 2000 Children's Choice book.

Lerangis's 2006 historical novel Smiler's Bones was a Junior Library Guild pick and was named among the New York Public Library Best Books for Teens 2006 and the Bank Street Best Books of 2006.