Occupation Author, illustrator Role Author Alma mater Bard College Education Bard College | Spouse Jill Pinkwater Movies I Want My Hat Back Name Daniel Pinkwater | |
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Born November 15, 1941 (age 82)
Memphis, Tennessee ( 1941-11-15 ) Genre Children's literature, young adult fiction Notable works The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, The Big Orange Splot, Borgel Nominations Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award, Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Books The Big Orange Splot, The Hoboken Chicken, Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and, Borgel | ||
Lizard music by daniel pinkwater ch1
Daniel Manus Pinkwater (born November 15, 1941) is an American author of children's books and "Young Adult" fiction. Well-known books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange Splot. He has also published an adult novel, The Afterlife Diet, and essay collections derived from his talks on National Public Radio. Though many of his most well-known books are considered humorous young adult fiction, he has written in various genres and for various audiences, and his published works range in style from picture books to adult fiction.
Contents
- Lizard music by daniel pinkwater ch1
- Daniel pinkwater literacy and pudding
- Themes
- Comics and radio
- Challenged book
- The Hare and the Pineapple used on exams
- References
Many elements of his fiction are based on real events and people he encountered in his youth.
Pinkwater is a trained artist and has illustrated many of his books in the past, although, for more recent works, that task has passed to his wife Jill Pinkwater. His artistic technique varies from work to work, with some books illustrated in computer drawings, others in woodcuts and others in Magic Marker.
Pinkwater varies his name slightly between books (for instance, "Daniel Pinkwater", "Daniel M. Pinkwater", "Daniel Manus Pinkwater", "D. Manus Pinkwater").
He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. He describes his father as a "ham-eating, iconoclastic Jew." His parents moved to Chicago, where he grew up. He attended Bard College.
Daniel pinkwater literacy and pudding
Themes
Pinkwater tends to write about social misfits who find themselves in bizarre situations, such as searching for a floating island populated by human-sized intelligent lizards (Lizard Music), exploring other universes with an obscure relative (Borgel), or discovering that their teeth can function as interstellar radio antennae (Fat Men from Space). They are often, though not always, set in thinly—or not at all—disguised versions of Chicago and Hoboken, New Jersey. He often includes Chicago landmarks and folkloric figures from his childhood in 1950s Chicago, regardless of when the book is set. An example of this is the recurring character the Chicken Man, a mysterious but dignified black man who carries a performing chicken on his head. This character is based on a shadowy figure from 1950s Chicago; after Pinkwater made him a lead character in Lizard Music he received letters from Chicago residents who remembered the Chicken Man. Pinkwater also pays tribute to the Clark Theater (a repertory movie theatre on Clark Street in the Chicago Loop that changed features daily and stayed open all night), Bughouse Square, and Ed & Fred's Red Hots. Another common theme is Jewish culture, with characters incongruously speaking in Yiddish-influenced dialogue or participating in Borscht Belt culture.
In 1995, Pinkwater published his first adult novel, The Afterlife Diet, in which a mediocre editor, upon dying, finds himself in a tacky Catskills resort populated by "circumferentially challenged" deceased.
Comics and radio
Pinkwater authored the newspaper comic strip Norb, which was illustrated by Tony Auth. The strip, syndicated by King Features, was cancelled after 52 weeks. The daily strips were released in a 78-page collection by MU Press in 1992.
Pinkwater is also a longtime commentator on National Public Radio. He regularly reviews children's books on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. For several years, he had his own NPR show: Chinwag Theater. Pinkwater is also known to avid fans of the NPR radio show Car Talk, where he has appeared as a (seemingly) random caller, commenting, for example, on the physics of the buttocks (giving rise to the proposed unit of measure of seat size: the Pinkwater), and giving practical advice as to the choice of automobiles. In the early 1990s Pinkwater voiced a series of humorous radio advertisements for the Ford Motor Company.
Challenged book
Following an appearance by Pinkwater on the Public Radio International program This American Life, his book The Devil in the Drain ended up on challenged book lists at numerous children's libraries.
The Hare and the Pineapple used on exams
In April 2012, a story attributed to Daniel Pinkwater, "The Hare and the Pineapple", was used on a standardized exam for 8th grade students in New York. The story was based on Pinkwater's short story, "The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant", which he had sold to the testing company. The published version changed the racer from an eggplant to a pineapple, and changed the moral of the story. Students were asked two perplexing questions: "Why did the animals eat the pineapple", and "which animal spoke the wisest words?" These questions baffled students. City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott issued a statement saying improvements on the state exam will be made in the future. The New York Daily News staff sent the question to Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, and he was stumped as well.