Marvin Terban

Marvin Terban (marvinterban.com) is a teacher and children's book author. Called a "master of children's wordplay" by ALA Booklist and "Mr. English for Kids" by the Children's Book-of-the-Month Club, he has written over thirty-five books for young readers and teachers, most of them about the English language. He is Scholastic's "Professor Grammar." Marvin Terban was born in Massachusetts and got his start as an author with a book that he wrote and drew in the first grade about a fuzzy green dragon. His first real writing job was a weekly column for his local newspaperwhen he was in high school. He was also the editor of his high school newspaper and literary magazine. He went to Tufts and Columbia Universities, where he received Bachelor's and Master's degrees respectively. For over fifty years, he has taught English, Latin, Public Speaking, Computer, Theater, and other subjects at the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City where he developed teaching games that used humor to help students understand and enjoy the mystifying idiosyncrasies of the English language. Those games grew into the highly original series of funny books on English for which he is known. Marvin's books have made it as far as Shanghai University in China where they are used to teach English to adults. His Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms has been translated into Japanese and Korean. Two of his books were turned into early computer games. He and his wife, a former special education instructor, also wrote two activity books for teachers. Three of his Scholastic books, Checking Your Grammar, Dictionary of Idioms, and Dictionary of Spelling, have sold well over one million copies each. In 2005, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, an international organization of over 20,000 creators of children's books, voted Marvin their Member of the Year. Marvin has acted in local community theater plays to raise money for various charities. He has also had small parts in movies directed by Woody Allen. For many summers he directed plays at a summer camp. He has paid "Meet the Author" visits to schools, colleges, and educational conferences all over the United States, South America, Europe, Israel, and Japan. The Terbans live in New York City and have two children and a granddaughter. Marvin loves to be a teacher and an author, read, take long walks in Central Park, go to movies and shows, watch good TV and listen to good radio, travel to many places in the United States and around the world, speak at educational conferences, visit schools, and best of all, spend time with his family.