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Hello, wonderful Mr. DP! I'm a librarian and write a webcomic set in a public library called 'Shelf Check"--today's strip mentions you, so I thought I'd post the link here in case you'd like to see it:
http://shelfcheck.blogspot.com/2010/07/shelf-check-422.html.
Thanks for all you do!
I checked Shelf Check. I am pleased you mentioned me, but I think you should have had me appear as a character in the strip. I am easy to draw, using a compass, or the bottom of a cup or glass to get my general shape--then you put a smaller circle for the head, and two even smaller circles for the eyeglasses--and there you have me!
Hello, Daniel!
Years ago, when I was a young and odd and impressionable child reading every book of yours that I could find in the Broome County Public Library system, I learned from you that every boy should have a chicken, and that following odd and crooked paths and people is the surest way to a good adventure.
So I would like you to meet Tillie, our most favorite – and crooked – chicken.
Tillie was born with a crooked neck somehow, and we took her home as one small, crooked young chick in our very first flock of four chickens. We brought her back to the feed store the next day and asked if they could fix her. They offered us another chicken from the same brood as an exchange but we didn't like the "fix" they had in mind for little Tillie, so we took both her and her sister home. If there was a chicken chiropractor or even a credentialed mad professor in the phone book we would have given that a try, but instead my very patient and loving wife hand-fed our weak and tired Tillie scrambled eggs, and vitamins, and electrolytes. After a few weeks she was no longer weak and tired, just crooked, but she owed us lots of scrambled eggs. Several months after that, she began paying us back with beautiful and delicious blue-green eggs that she lays to this day. She scratches and pecks and plays, and has chicken adventures, and hops "hup-hup-hup" up and down our chicken ramp like a happy chicken should. It's impossible for us to look at her without smiling no matter what kind of day we're having.
It's hard to say what may or may not have happened had something else not happened, what with butterflies flapping their wings all the time, but it has occurred to me recently, as I've been revisiting and purchasing many of your beloved books, that your writing has influenced me in ways that made it more possible for me to love a little crooked chicken. For that I thank you, and Tillie thanks you too.
If you ever come to California we would be honored to make you an omelette.
p.s. - I recently read The Hoboken Chicken Emergency to my wife and she thought it was just about the greatest thing ever. I plan to read her all of your chicken-themed books. Please keep writing stories about chickens!!
Tillie is a lovely chicken! I had an aunt with a similar physique. I hope you're aware of our most recent chicken-themed book, Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken. You may wish to read it to Tillie.
Dear Sir. Why are the pockets of my pants sewn shut? Best.
To discourage the slovenly habit of standing with your hands in them. A gentleman does not put his hands, or anything, in his trouser pockets. The pockets are there for some unknown reason shrouded in antiquity. You may carry your handkerchief, wallet, and other items in a pocket of your jacket or waistcoat. Or have your servant carry them.
I have a blog where kids review books. Today, Dharma, who's 5, reviews BEAUTIFUL YETTA. If you'd like to see her review, it's at: http://www.patzietlowmiller.com
Thanks!
Pat Zietlow Miller
Best review ever!
Have you ever seen a kid's version of the I L Peretz short story "Bontsha Zwieg" or "Bontsha the Silent"?
No, nor the adult version. I am happy to answer literary questions like this.
Dear Mister Pinkwater,
I read "Lizard Music" when I was a little seven year-old Weirdo (26 years ago) and I have adored your work ever since. Not only did you have odd characters and fun situations; you captured the vocabulary of my childhood inner self in a way no other author ever did. Your young characters were strange but not stupid, whimsical but not baseless. Their patterns of speech never seemed unreal or worse- condescending.
"Lizard Music" became my lifelong friend and it showed me that other Weirdos besides myself, my family and Dr Demento were out there and thriving. I will always be indebted to you for filling such a deep void in my life and for providing me with countless days and nights of joy and kinship through your books and radio appearances.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Hally
Well, that is about as handsome a compliment as a book can receive. Except for this one: The magnificent New York Review of Books children's collection, which only reprints books of genuine quality, has selected the very same Lizard Music for publication next year! So you can give copies to others. Meanwhile, maybe you'd like to read The Neddiad and/or Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl and let me know if you think I am still on the same track 40 years later.
Daniel--
A link, forwarded by my daughter, proving that The Big Orange Splot is a true story. My three kids grew up on Orange Splot and Lizard Music. All three turned out better than most. Far better. Each got a personal copy of Orange Splot this past Christmas.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/owner-likes-orange-house-553469.html
Jeff
It is a widely held understanding that readers of mine turn out better than most. Thanks for confirming this.
Hi, its Riley i had a question well when i grow up i want to be an auther and i was wondering if it was fun and if it was easy.So thats about it thank you. - Riley
It is fun, and it is easy--for me. If it is fun and easy for you, then you might want to be a writer. There are writers for whom it is not fun and not easy, and they do it anyway--I don't understand why.
Daniel, my friend Matt and I stopped by to visit you and your wife at Oblong Books today. (We're the ones who gave you the Benjamin Franklin stein.) I purchased a copy of "Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken" and brought it home for my little girls. Ella, my 5 year-old, made me read it to her three times before bed. When I asked if she liked the story or the pictures better, she answered, "Both of them." Score two points for Pinkwater & Pinkwater.
What readers we have! It was nice to meet you and see Matt again.
ICH BIN YETE
MEIN YIDISHE NOMEN IZ YENTE
FUN MEIN BOBE....
I was just sent a copy of your Beatiful Yetta and loved reading the Yiddish, Spanish and English to my husband. I covered up the transliteration to see of I could read the Yiddish without looking at the transliteration.
Did you know that there were Yiddish chicken farmers in Petaluma California? I bet their chickens spoken a zayer guten Yiddish.
I'll be sharing this book with teachers and kids and family members far and wide. I may even have the opportunity to read it at the United Kingdom Literacy Conference in July and I'll be sharing it with teachers at Hofstra University in June....
There are a few other books with Yetta in the title. I don't know many Yetta's any more. My grandmother's name was Anglisized to Yetta from Yenta. My family called me Yenta Tilabenda for most of my growing up years.
Thanks for this opportunity. All the best. Keep writing for children and others. Un zei gezuntT
Yetta Goodman
A SHAYNEM DANK! There's something about that book! It appears to make people happy. It can't be the story--there hardly is one--but when Jill undertook to do the drawings she asked the editor, and she asked me, "How do you think I should draw Yetta?" We both said the same thing, "Make her beautiful and lovable." Or maybe it's the name. Do people smile when they see you?
I was very excited to see that Daniel and Jill are doing a signing in June, not very far (Rhinebeck) from where I live (Western Mass.). Unfortunately, it is a day that my partner (who loves loves loves the works of Pinkwater) has a commitment elsewhere. Will you be doing other signings in the near future?
No. We don't often do signings. I forget why.
Many years back DP did a radio essay on Golf and how it was started by Scottish "Village Idiots".
Where might I find this audio?
No idea--especially since I did not write it. I have only played one game of golf in my life, and had no way of knowing if the idiots were Scottish or not.
I don't want to talk about DP's writing skills or my lack of them. I have followed over the years Mr. P's escapades involved in automobile purchases. Since I am 6'5" and in the over 275 class (and 67) I want to know what he is presnetly buying for a car. I remeber his BMW with the food restrictions in the manual but what about today is there a reasonably priced vehicle for our size. Simply put what are you driving?
I am driving an 11-year-old Mercedes-Benz station wagon which I had to have because two large dogs who had to ride separately because otherwise wrestling and bouncing off the ceiling. But my all-time favorite large-_person_ car is the VW New Beetle. (See http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/Pinkwater-Car/)
I've just published a brief review of "Yobgorgle" at www.associatedcontent.com. Please feel free to read it at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/3010528/book_review_yobgorgle.html?cat=38.
Comments are welcome, and goofiness is encouraged!
I read your review, didn't see where to post a comment, so I will comment here. I take exception to the repeated use of the term, "nonsense." When I wrote that book, I wasn't a good enough writer to do nonsense. Also the review makes repeated mention of the absence of sex and female characters, also the male characters' lack of emotional response to one another. An editor of adult books once pitched the idea that I should write one. She said, "The difference between a children's novel and an adult novel is the adult novel is about human relations and sex." I said, "Shoot! The two things I don't understand anything about!"
theres this girl who keeps bothering me. what do i do?
Often effective is disguising oneself with leaves, as a bush or shrub.
I have been watching the Garfield Show (as in Garfield the Cat) and it sure sounded like you voicing Garfield. I was shocked to discover that it's actually a guy named Frank Welker. Now I want to know, are you him, or he you, or did you know that if he can't do the voice, you'd make a great stand-in?
I must catch the Garfield show. Your post suggests they employ fine actors.
Just thought you should know -- the official anthem for the World Cup is called "Waka Waka".
Thank you.
Daniel Pinkwater; I've been reading all you're books ever sense I was really small,the thinnerbooks like;Wempires,Devil in the drain,Uncle Melvin and Doodle flute. Now I have just finished 4 fantastic novels. i am now on page 162 of the Neddiad and have just met Yggrassel (is that how you spell it?) YoUR bOoKS ArE SOo coOL!! from Caius Sztuk
What can I say? When you're right, you're right.
Dear Mr Pinkwater, I recently purchased a Kindle and was sad to see that the only book available by you in the Kindle format is Once Upon a Blue Moose. Will you be releasing any other books for the Kindle? I'd love to purchase them!
On another note, I fell in love with Lizard Music and Alan Mendelsohn when I was in middle school. I checked out the original 76/79 publications so many times that I formed a very strong tactile association with those books. So when I decided to buy them, I searched rare book dealers and found the exact binding/editions that I used to read. I am happy to say that I took these with me when I went into the Peace Corps and I brought them with me to Korea.
Now if I could only get them in electronic form legally I would be a very very happy woman.
Julia
I do not care about Kindle one way or the other, and I didn't know that even one book of mine is available on it, possibly legally. If you want my books electronically, many of them can be had here on this website in audio form, (free!), and current, to-be-published, books have been serialized here for several years. If you want a facsimile of the original Lizard Music, it will be published next year by New York Review Children's Book Collection--inclusion in which I regard as the highest possible honor.
This made the Front Page of the local paper today. Well, only a small mention of it made the front page, but there is a big picture on the first page of the B section.
A WHOLE FAMILY of Giant Palouse Earthworms, rumored to be as much as three feet long, has been found. Unfortunately they will likely be renamed the "larger-than-average Palouse Earthworm" in the near future, as they seem to be about ten inches long in adulthood. The are the beautiful shell pink color. It is unknown if they have a lily smell as described, but they do not spit. They are said to be very gentle.
I thought you would have to be updated on this important breakthrough in Giant worm taxonomy.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011716503_earthworm28m.html
But can they play chess?
