Charles Ira Coombs

Background

Charles Coombs was born on June 27, 1914, in Los Angeles, California.

Career

Charles Coombs began his career during the Great Depression as a farm hand, store clerk, and carpenter's helper. He also worked in the merchandising department at Sears Roebuck Co. in their Los Angeles office from 1939 to 1941, and he was a methods analyst for Douglas Aircraft Co., El Segundo, during World War II. In addition to his other duties, Coombs served as entertainment columnist and producer of comic strips (Chip Grant and Tex Martin and the Twins) for Hi Way, Catholic Boy, Catholic Miss, and Junior Life magazines and he was the West Coast movie and television representative for Boys’ Life magazine.

He was a free-\lance writer from 1946 on. His first book was Teen Age Adventure Stories (1948). He wrote or edited over eighty books during his career, nearly all for the juvenile or young adult market, including the “Young Readers” series, and the “Be a Winner” series. His last book was Soaring: Where Hawks and Eagles Fly (1988).

Achievements

• Coombs is best remembered as the author of Project Apollo: Mission to the Moon. He also modelled John Carter of Mars for John Coleman Burroughs's Sunday-newspaper comics strip of that name in 1941.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Soaring: Where Hawks and Eagles Fly

    (Introduces the adventurous sport of sailplaning and glidi...)

    1988
  • All-Terrain Bicycling

    (Introduces all-terrain biking, describing the selection a...)

    1987
  • Be a Winner in Baseball

    (Presents a brief history of baseball and instructs in imp...)

    1973
  • Be a Winner in Windsurfing

    (Describes windsurfing, also called boardsailing or sailbo...)

    1982
  • Bicycling 1972
  • Be a Winner in Tennis 1975
  • Be a winner in horsemanship 1976
  • Passage to space: The shuttle transportation system 1979
  • Coal in the energy crisis 1980
  • A Guide to Bicycle Motocross 1983
  • Tankers, Giants of the Sea 1979
  • Gateway to space 1960
  • Be a Winner in Ice Hockey 1974

Connections

Spouse:

Eleanor Coombs

References

• Contemporary Authors A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields
  2008