Back in 2011, The New York Review of Books inducted Daniel Pinkwater's classic Lizard Music into its canon with a handsome little hardcover edition; today they follow that up with a stylish, jazzy paperback, priced to move at $10.
Nick Courage was lucky enough to score a blurb from literature-hero Daniel Pinkwater for his debut novel The Loudness:
Reading Daniel Pinkwater's novels as a kid changed my life for the better, and I've never looked back, so this beautifully written profile by Josh Nathan-Kazis was a pure delight to read, from Pinkwater's experiences as a cult member to the time that Terry Gilliam blamed him for killing Harvey Kurtzman's Help! — Read the rest
One year ago today
Odd Duck: great picture book about eccentricity and ducks: Cecil Castellucci's Odd Duck is the story of Theodora, "a perfectly normal duck" who likes her routine — swimming, stretching, taking books out of the library, buying duck kibble, doing craft projects (with duck burlap, naturally) and star-gazing. — Read the rest
Children's author, essayist and hero of literature Daniel Pinkwater has revived his classic backlist as a line of DRM-free ebooks! Each one is only $3, and there are some astoundingly good titles in there.
Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars was my first Pinkwater, and it literally changed my life. — Read the rest
It was a lot of work, rowing The Father Skolnik Maru, but it wasn't torture. It wasn't like Les Miserables or anything.
— Daniel Pinkwater (@DanielPinkwater) March 4, 2014
We got 10 minute breaks, every 30 minutes.
— Daniel Pinkwater (@DanielPinkwater) March 4, 2014
Geets and I were able to fake-row some of the time.
— Read the rest
Daniel Pinkwater, the writer who made me the weirdo I am today, has a fantastic podcast wherein he reads his books in (all-too-short) weekly excerpts. This week, he wrapped up a read of Yobgorgle: Mystery Monster of Lake Ontario, and kicked off a read of the remarkable The Last Guru. — Read the rest
Jennifer writes with amazing news! "FISH WHISTLE is a compilation of the best of Daniel Pinkwater's short essays. Contains classic (and very funny) stories of Pinkwater's family, travels in Africa, food, raising dogs and becoming an artist, many of which were first heard on NPR's 'All Things Considered.' — Read the rest
Daniel Pinkwater's Bushman Lives is another of Pinkwater's marvellous novels for young adults (and adults!) in which a misfit narrator embraces his inner weirdo and finds odd joy. Harold Knishke is a young man in late 1950s Chicago who finds himself with a lot of spare time thanks to weird political patronage at his high-school, which results in him serving as a corrupt hall monitor who can excuse himself from school grounds on his own recognizance. One day, he quits flute lessons, sells his flute to his relieved instructor, and uses the money to take up life-drawing classes at a beatnik art school across the street from a mysterious whitewashed house whose paint is constantly being replenished by mysterious, hissing humanoids all dressed in white wrapping.
Daniel Pinkwater, a much-loved living treasure of children's literature, has a new book out today. It's called Mrs Noodlekugel and it is a simple, silly pleasure that feels like the end-product of a lifetime of telling children's stories, carefully removing all the elements that are extraneous to young readers' enjoyment until nothing but the essentials remain. — Read the rest
Absurdist kids' literature hero Daniel Pinkwater is at the center of an appropriately absurd kerfuffle. An eighth-grade New York reading test published by Pearson republishes an edited (and much less funny) version of a fairy tale told in his novel Borgel (reprinted in this outstanding omnibus). — Read the rest
Zack sez, "The author of such surreal delights as LIZARD MUSIC and THE HOBOKEN CHICKEN EMERGENCY has gone to the web to premiere his latest work before it heads to hard-copy. Daniel Pinkwater's BUSHMAN LIVES will update with a new chapter every Monday, with the first already online. — Read the rest
Today, the New York Review of Books' Children's Collection imprint released a new edition of Daniel Pinkwater's debut book, the classic gonzo science fiction kids' title Lizard Music. Lizard Music is the improbable tale of Victor, a social oddball who loves anchovy pizza and late-night TV — and one night, he discovers that his TV is receiving after-hours programming from another dimension of intelligent lizards. — Read the rest
Daniel Pinkwater's latest is a picture book for very young readers called Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken. Yetta is raised on an idyllic farm, but eventually her farmer friend has to deliver her to a Brooklyn butcher shop. At the last second, she escapes and makes her way into the streets, where she is terrorized by rats and trucks. — Read the rest
Daniel Pinkwater's Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl is the sequel to his Neddiad (a gonzo take on the Iliad starring Neddie, a boy who moves to 1950s Los Angeles, eats in the Brown Derby, attends military school, befriends shamans, eats fried foods, and saves the world from the Elder Gods) and Ygyssey (The Odyssey, starring a tomboyish legacy of a rootin-tootin' silent film cowboy who travels to a parallel dimension, enervates a witch, discovers the secret revels of Los Angeles's ghosts, is put-off by hippie food and fells a corrupt dictatorship). — Read the rest
Continuing last week's spate of Daniel Pinkwater reviews (see the earlier posts on The Neddiad and The Yggyssey), I'm here today to tell you about The Education of Robert Nifkin, one of Pinkwater's true geek-inspirational masterpieces.
I missed Nifkin the first time around (it was initially published in 1998), but I'm pleased to have corrected that oversight, especially since the latest edition, from Houghton Mifflin's Graphia imprint, comes with a fabulous Shag-illustrated cover. — Read the rest
Earlier this week, I reviewed Daniel Pinkwater's wonderful homage to the Illiad, the Neddiad, and now I've had the distinct pleasure of reading the sequel, The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There, a tribute to (what else?) — Read the rest
I've been catching up with a bunch of Daniel Pinkwater books lately, most recently The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization, his 2007 young adult novel that contains (in no particular order): circus animals, Pullman trains, sleight of hand, Navaho shaman, triplanes, the Grand Canyon, shoelaces, ghosts, cowboys, fat alien cops in grey station wagons, swordfighting, torture, rescue, a Roman coliseum, elder gods, and tar-soaked fossils. — Read the rest
O frabjous day! Daniel Pinkwater has put most of the text of his news kids' book The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There online, along with audio of him reading the first chapter. — Read the rest
Daniel Pinkwater, the greatest sf writer in the universe, is serializing a story on the Internet. Many writers had an influence on me when I was growing up, but no single writer did so much to inspire me to write as Pinkwater: a gifted humorist and storyteller whose savage wit and nerd-positive message comes across in stories from picture-books to young adult novels (including the blisteringly, savagely funny Young Adult Novel). — Read the rest
