Paul Hutchens

Paul Hutchens ( born April 7, 1902 in Thorntown, Indiana; † January 23, 1977 in Colorado Springs, Colorado) was an American itinerant preacher and author. He wrote 65 best Christian books for adults and children. His most famous work is the 36 -volume children's book series Sugar Creek corridor.

Biography

Hutchens grew up with two sisters and six brothers on a farm in Sugar Creek, Boone County ( Indiana) near Thorntown. He graduated from the College of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and worked as a Protestant, then as a Baptist itinerant preacher.

With his wife Jane Freerks who later accompanied him there, and with whom he also played music in public, he had a daughter named Pauline.

After TB disease, he began to write the stories of the Sugar Creek corridor. The band members in the books were inspired by his brothers.

Paul Hutchens died in 1977; a year later his wife.

Sugar Creek gang

The 36 -part children's book series published 1939-1970 and was in parts in different languages, including translated into Norwegian, Korean, Hebrew, French and German. In Germany, the series was released initially with the addition of sugar creek gang, but later often without this designation and only with the name of the sequence. After the death of his daughter Pauline continued the series progresses slightly changed.

From the 1940s wore Hutchens his books in radio programs before. In the 1970s and 1980s, a radio series was published under the name Adventures in Drama, which was set to music and sound, and was later released on cassettes and CDs.

Filmed for television were 2004/2005 five of his books. The first film adaptation Sugar Creek Gang: Swamp Robber in 2005 on the Canadian Creation Arts Festival Award for Best Children's Film. Filmed the low-budget productions in the north of Georgia.

The stories are originally from a seven-member, Christian boy band ( Bill, Poetry, Dragonfly, Little Jim, Circus, Big Jim and Tom Till ) who experience various adventures in Sugar Creek. Told they are looking back from the 10 -year-old, red-haired Bill Collins.

In the movies the boy "Circus " was replaced by an eponymous girl. In the new book series, there is a gang of three boys and two girls. In German translation ( from 1971 published by Schulte & Gerth ) the band members have some normal names like Willi and Jürgen, some names like cask, Oblong, loudmouth and Dichterling.

A German 24 -part radio drama series Wild West of Hanno Herzler, which appeared from 1995 by the same publisher, also based on the sugar creek gang.

Other works

Hutchens also wrote the three-part YA series Jeanie, 21 books for adults, three music books, a collection of poems and an autobiography.