In an apartment in Brooklyn, shortly after giving birth, Mary Lerangis urges her first-born son to become a writer.
Peter Lerangis (b. 1955) is a bestselling author of young adult fiction; his novels have sold more than four million copies worldwide. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lerangis began writing in elementary school, inventing stories during math class—after finishing the problems, he claims. His first piece of published writing was an anonymous humor article for the April Fools’ Day edition of his high school newspaper. Seeing the other students laughing in the corridors as they read it, planted the idea in his head that he could be a writer. After high school he attended Harvard University, where he majored in biochemistry and sang in an a cappella group, the Harvard Krokodiloes. Intending to go on to law school, Lerangis took a job as a paralegal post-graduation. But after a summer job as a singing waiter, he changed his path and became a musical theater actor.
Lerangis found theatrical work on Broadway, appearing in They’re Playing Our Song, and he toured the country in such shows as Cabaret, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof, acting alongside theatrical greats such as Jack Lemmon, John Lithgow, Jane Powell, John Raitt, and Victor Garber. During these years, Lerangis met his future wife, Tina deVaron, and began editing fiction, a job that would eventually lead him to writing novels of his own.
Lerangis got his start writing novelizations under the penname A. L. Singer, as well as installments of long-running series, such as the Hardy Boys and the Baby-sitters Club. He eventually began writing under his own name with 1994’s The Yearbook and Driver’s Dead, two high-school horror novels that are part of the Point Horror series of young-adult thrillers.
In 1998, Lerangis debuted Watchers, a six-novel sci-fi series, which won Children’s Choice and Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers awards. The first book in the Abracadabra series, Poof! Rabbits Everywhere (2002), introduced Max, an aspiring magician who struggles to keep a lid on the supernatural happenings at his school. Lerangis followed that eight-book series with the immensely popular Spy X novels, about a pair of twins drawn into international espionage.
The stand-alone novel Smiler’s Bones (2005), based on the true story of an Eskimo brought to New York City in 1897, won critical acclaim and a number of awards. Most recently, Lerangis has collaborated with a group of high-profile children’s authors on Scholastic’s the 39 Clues, a sprawling ten-novel adventure series.
At times, Lerangis’s life has been as thrilling as one of his stories. He has run a marathon, rock-climbed during an earthquake, gone on-stage as a last-minute replacement for Broadway legend Alan Jay Lerner, and visited Russia as part of a literary delegation that included First Lady Laura Bush. He lives with his family in New York City, not far from Central Park.
In an apartment in Brooklyn, shortly after giving birth, Mary Lerangis urges her first-born son to become a writer.
In Prospect Park, Nicholas Lerangis entertains a son so obsessed with books that, by sixteen months, he had yet to learn to walk.
Lerangis, stylish even at four years old.
Lerangis (in back) with his younger sister and brother. He promised them that if they learned to play well enough, the little man on the piano would start to dance. . . . They are still practicing.
To this day, Lerangis refuses to admit that this early work was created during sixth-grade math class.
Lerangis as a freshman at Freeport High School in 1970. Here, he shows off his writing style and his mustache, both of which were to develop quite a bit in the future.
Lerangis (standing, second from left) at the Charles River with his a cappella singing group, the Harvard Krokodiloes. The group still performs to this day.
Lerangis promptly retired his ruffled shirt after this performance at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater in 1976.
Lerangis with his soon-to-be wife, Tina deVaron, at their rehearsal dinner in Boston in 1983.
Lerangis with his sons, Nick and Joseph, in 1991. He remarks that, although this was a comfortable pose at the time, any attempt to recreate it today would be painful.
In 2003, Lerangis was invited by the White House to accompany First Lady Laura Bush to Moscow to represent the United States at the first Russian Book Festival. From left to right: R. L. Stine, Lerangis, Marc Brown, Cherie Blair QC, and First Lady Laura Bush.
The Lerangis/deVaron family in 2005 at the Gates exhibition in Central Park— just a hop, skip, and a jump from their home on the Upper West Side. (Image courtesy of Ellen Dubin Photography.)
A welcome reception during an author visit in Solana Beach, California, in 2009.
Lerangis connects with his audience after a school visit in Chappaqua, New York, in 2012.