Richard Wormser is a filmmaker turned writer who has published several works of nonfiction for young adult readers on such varied topics as teens at risk, Vietnam, hoboes, railways, American Islam, and even a biography of Allan Pinkerton, the first private investigator in America. Wormser's writings generally have a social slant, and he often chooses to feature those who, "having experienced the worst that life has to offer, are able to pick themselves up, tumble forward, and move out of the darkness of their lives into some light," as Wormser wrote in an essay for Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS).

Born in 1933, Wormser was a child of the Great Depression and a great fan of baseball, partly because Babe Ruth lived only two blocks away from his home. Playing hooky to go to a Yankees game, he was later caught by his father and spent a...