Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Hello! Thank you for all of your writing and art and for introducing me to your wife Jill’s art and work. I read my first book by you this year and have now read almost all of them and have had a year filled with more smiling and thinking and laughing and creating things as a result.
When I was looking up a German word in one of your books a few months ago, I realized that some of the names in the book also have other meanings in other languages like German or Yiddish or Polish that might be secret jokes relating to the story. Since Mr. Pfiff the flute teacher, I’ve made sure to pay attention to the names when I read your books. Do you have any favorite names (with secret meanings or not) that you’ve used in your books?
Thank you again,
Laura
Thank you for saying nice things about my books. People never mention, and sometimes I wonder about the age of a person writing to me--is it a young person who read a whole bunch of my stuff or an adult? I think the earliest secret name-joke in a book of mine was in Lizard Music, Shane Fergussen is a play on "shoyn vergessen" "I have already forgotten" an it is the punchlline of a famous joke. I wonder if you can find it online.
