Robert Lipsyte, who celebrates his birthday on January 16th, was one of the first to write books for contemporary young adults. Today, The Contender, a novel about boxing, is widely considered to be a classic of young adult literature and it is assigned reading in high schools throughout America. After graduating from Columbia University, Lipsyte became a copy boy for the sports department of The New York Times. Eventually, he wrote an internationally-syndicated sports column. In 1964, he was assigned to cover professional boxing, where he closely followed Muhammad Ali's career. He was a correspondent for the CBS television program Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt and, in 1991, he returned to The New York Times to write a weekly sports column. His other books for young adults, including The Brave, The Chief, One Fat Summer, and The Chemo Kid have built the career which was honored with the ALA's Margaret A. Edwards Award in 2001.
"When you write for adults," he said in a recent interview, "you're either a genius or a jerk, depending on whether you stroke or ruffle their feathers. But kids are seemingly reading with more of an open mind. And you do have more of an opportunity to have an impact on somebody's life, and I like that."
