Review | World Cup Mouse

Richard Seidman loves to make jokes and, as he puts it, “funny business.” He says that’s one of the main reasons he enjoys writing – to amuse himself and children (and also the big children that are called “grown-ups”).

For Richard, funny business is a way to love life, and it’s also a way to transform sorrows. His ancestors, their hearts full of stories and hopes, fled to the U.S. from Poland and Ukraine in the early part of the twentieth century. Forty years later, Richard was born in Brooklyn, New York.

When he was growing up, playing games and sports and reading were the main things he enjoyed, and they’re still the main things he enjoys today!

Richard wound up in Portland, Oregon where in 1989 he founded the nonprofit tree-planting group, Friends of Trees. In 1996, he was honored as a “Community Hero” for his role as the group’s founder and carried the Olympic torch in its national relay.

In 2001, St. Martin’s Press published his nonfiction book for adults, The Oracle of Kabbalah: Mystical Teachings of the Hebrew Letters. Richard will be releasing a revised edition, The New Oracle of Kabbalah, in fall of 2014.

He’s a member of SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and a founding member of a local children’s book writing critique group. He’s also the editor and compiler of a nonfiction children’s book published by Benchmark Education, I Am Deaf and I Dance: A Memoir.

In the fall of 2013, after training in the martial arts for eighteen years, Richard earned a black belt in Shotokan Karate.

He now lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife, Rachael.

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