Authors are often asked where they get story ideas. It's a tough question. Inspiration can be fleeting. One writer good at snatching such a moment is Avi, the author who goes by one name.

He has turned those elusive bits into more than 60 novels for young readers. One of his favorites, "The Fighting Ground," will appear on these pages in serialization, starting next Tuesday.

Avi writes smart, fresh stories in all genres, from mystery to adventure, fantasy to historical fiction. Many have won prestigious awards, including the 2003 Newbery Medal for "Crispin: The Cross of Lead," an intriguing historical adventure set in the Middle Ages. A partial list of Avi's work appears on Page D7.

Mention Avi to Sacramento educators, and they are quick to praise his work.

"Kids love his books. There's a sound of truth in his writing," said Penny Kastanis, coordinator of the teacher librarian program at California State University, Sacramento.

In full agreement is Kathy Orihuela, an academic literary teacher at Monterey Trail High School in Elk Grove who used Avi's books when she taught junior high. "Avi's books provoke students to think from a different perspective. For example," Orihuela said, " 'The Fighting Ground' is a war story about what it was like to be in a war, not about which side was right. It seems that book continues to be timely."

Avi recalls the genesis of "The Fighting Ground" as a day in the mid-1970s when he drove by a simple historical marker in New Jersey. It indicated the site of a skirmish during the American Revolution, and it made Avi think.

"War is not just big battles," Avi said from his home in Denver. "The impact of the minuscule is gigantic. There is no such thing as a small event in a war."

That thought grew into his heart-pounding portrait of 24 hours in the life of a 13-year-old boy who's determined to fight like a soldier. The searing snapshot of an innocent at war won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

That was 25 years ago. Now Avi's story will begin anew, compressed into 18 chapters in The Bee.

In a wide-ranging conversation last week, Avi talked about why he selected this novel to serialize and the difficulties it posed. He also explained te personal challenges that reading and writing pose.

"It's a book I always liked," Avi said of "The Fighting Ground." "It's in a style unusual for me, terse and direct. The subject matter, unfortunately, doesn't go away. It's a hard story, and I made it as honest as I could. … I hope it makes people think and feel.

"Anytime you write about war, it's an emotive subject. How could it not be?"

Editing the novel down for serialization gave Avi headaches.

"I sort of had to take the book apart and pack it up again," he said. "I think the essential story and emotional core are still there. I had to give up details, and I like detail."

Avi speaks softly and quietly about his hope that the reality of war's horror will resonate with young readers.

"We live in complicated times. The way people reacted to World War II was different from subsequent wars.

"For example, in this conflict in Iraq, our government had a policy of not allowing caskets of soldiers to be photographed as a way of removing the pain (of war). And I think of the shock when the media revealed the plight of the veterans in vet hospitals.

"I think it's always good to engage young people in the core dilemmas of our country … so a thought process begins. The kids who play the video games that can be violent don't have a sense of reality. Reality is always good for people."

In "The Fighting Ground," Avi sets his hour-by-hour story in rural New Jersey in April 1778 and lets young Jonathan narrate.

The boy explains why he wants to fight and about his struggle to carry a musket. Too proud to whine, Jonathan hides his fear in battle and as a prisoner.

Avi said the story has elicited lots of positive feedback. His readers often write that they never thought about children being in the war.

"In fact, when the war ended, most soldiers were teenagers," Avi said.

Such detail enriches Avi's historical fiction, which he thoroughly researches. For "Fighting Ground," he bought topographical maps and walked every inch of the terrain, he said. In 1976, during the nation's 200th birthday celebration, Avi also watched battle reenactments.

"I remember having a physical sense of what's going on," Avi said, explaining how he lugged a musket to feel how hard it would be for a youngster to carry, load and fire.

The reality Avi faces daily is different. As a boy, he struggled with criticism from his English teachers. Not until his parents put him in a private high school did he get the tutoring he needed to cope with of dysgraphia (difficulty in writing) and dyslexia (inability to make sense of written language).

"I have sloppy reading skills," he said. "I do have letter reversals and write words different from what I mean. I write sloppy. Having a computer made a huge difference. And getting spell check was one of thrilling days of my life."

Even so, Avi finds himself rewriting everything up to 70 times.

"That's no exaggeration," he said. "When I write a manuscript for the first time, it's pretty bad. Then I make it good."

Avi was born Edward Irving Wortis in 1937 in New York. When he was about a year old, his twin sister started calling him Avi. The name stuck. Today, it's the only name he uses.

"Even my wife calls me Avi, unless she's mad at me," he said. "I don't use my family name because they discouraged me from becoming a writer. It was more a protective thing since I had so much trouble writing."

Avi lives with his wife, Linda Wright, near their blended family of five adult children.

Judy Green can be reached at jgreen@sacbee.com.