Daniel Pinkwater facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Daniel Pinkwater
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Pinkwater in 2011
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| Born | Manus Pinkwater November 15, 1941 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Pen name | Daniel Pinkwater, Daniel M. Pinkwater, Daniel Manus Pinkwater, D. Manus Pinkwater |
| Occupation | Author, illustrator |
| Alma mater | Bard College |
| Genre | Children's literature, young adult fiction |
| Notable works |
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| Spouse | Jill Pinkwater (1969-2022; her death) |
Daniel Pinkwater (born November 15, 1941) is a well-known American author. He writes many books for kids and young adults. Some of his popular 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 also wrote a novel for adults called The Afterlife Diet. Daniel Pinkwater has shared many stories and essays on National Public Radio (NPR).
Many of the exciting things in his stories are based on real events and people he met when he was younger.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Daniel Pinkwater was born Manus Pinkwater in Memphis, Tennessee. His parents were immigrants from Poland. When he was young, his family moved to Chicago, where he grew up.
He went to the Black-Foxe Military Institute in Hollywood. There, he became friends with Sean Flynn, the son of actor Errol Flynn. Later, he finished high school back in Chicago.
After high school, he studied at Bard College in New York State. He studied art, but he felt that studying art in college was not for him. So, he became an apprentice to a sculptor named David Nyvall in Chicago. After three years, Nyvall told Pinkwater that he would be a writer instead of a sculptor.
Pinkwater had a brief moment of fame when he posed for a comic strip called Help! in 1965. He was spotted at a party by Terry Gilliam, who later became a famous filmmaker.
He met a children's book editor by chance at a party. He invited her to his studio to show her some art. She suggested that he illustrate a book. Pinkwater then decided to try writing the book himself. He received money for his first book, The Terrible Roar, which was published in 1970.
With his wife, Jill, Pinkwater also wrote a book about dog training. They even ran a dog obedience school in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Daniel Pinkwater is a trained artist and has illustrated many of his own books. For some of his newer books, his wife, Jill Pinkwater, does the illustrations. He uses different art styles for his books, like computer drawings, woodcuts, and even Magic Marker drawings.
He sometimes uses slightly different names for his books, such as "Daniel Pinkwater" or "Daniel M. Pinkwater." He started using the name Daniel in the 1970s.
Story Themes and Settings
Pinkwater often writes about characters who are a bit different and find themselves in strange situations. For example, they might search for a floating island with intelligent lizards, or discover their teeth can pick up radio signals from space.
His stories are often set in places that look a lot like Chicago and Hoboken, New Jersey. These are cities where he lived.
He often includes famous places and interesting people from his childhood in 1950s Chicago. This happens even if the story is set in a different time. One example is the "Chicken Man," a mysterious person who carries a performing chicken on his head. This character is based on a real person Pinkwater remembered from Chicago. After he made the Chicken Man a main character in Lizard Music, people from Chicago wrote to him saying they remembered the real Chicken Man! Pinkwater also mentions places like the Clark Theater and Bughouse Square in his books.
Another common theme in his books is Jewish culture. Sometimes, character names sound like Yiddish phrases. Characters might also speak in a way that sounds like Yiddish.
In 1995, Pinkwater wrote his first novel for adults, The Afterlife Diet. It's about an editor who dies and finds himself in a resort filled with other deceased people.
Comics and Radio Work
Daniel Pinkwater wrote a newspaper comic strip called Norb. Tony Auth drew the pictures for it. The comic strip started in many newspapers, but readers did not like it very much. So, Pinkwater and Auth decided to end it after 52 weeks.
Pinkwater was a regular guest on All Things Considered on National Public Radio (NPR). He often reviewed children's books on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. For several years, he even had his own NPR show called Chinwag Theater.
He was also known to fans of the NPR radio show Car Talk. He would call in as a funny caller, sometimes giving advice about cars. In the early 1990s, Pinkwater also voiced funny radio advertisements for the Ford Motor Company.
The Hare and the Pineapple on Exams
In April 2012, a story that was said to be by Daniel Pinkwater, called "The Hare and the Pineapple," was used on a test for 8th-grade students in New York City. The story was based on Pinkwater's short story, "The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant." He had sold his story to the company that made the test.
However, the test version changed the racer from an eggplant to a pineapple. It also changed the lesson of the story. Students found two of the questions very confusing: "The animals ate the pineapple most likely because they were ___?" and "Which animal spoke the wisest words?" Even a famous Jeopardy! champion, Ken Jennings, could not answer them! City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said that improvements would be made to the state exam in the future.
