Mr Pinkwater – I was introduced to you thru Weekend Edition and so loved listening to you and Scott Simon talk about children’s books. You have a soothing and playful voice and just hearing it calmed me.
You reviewed a book years ago about a father and son who went into space. I think the son went first and the father followed the son. Somehow they got separated – the son took off further into space alone (my memory of the story is so vague, my description of it may be way off) . The son had only been gone a short period of time from his perspective but what he didn’t realize was when he returned to find his father it was actually years and years in the future and is father had already died because time had passed much more quickly for the father relative to the son’s experience of time. The story taught kids about the complex concept of the space/time relationship – in particular that an object in motion experiences time at a slower rate than one at rest and the closer an object gets to the speed of light, the slower the rate times passes for the object.
I have been obsessed with finding that book off and on for 20+ years. Do you remember it? I don’t even know if it is in print anymore. At this point, I would just like the know the name of the book and the author.
Any help you can provide would be appreciated.
Not only do I not remember that book, I am pretty sure I never read it or discussed it on the air. It sounds like quite a good book, not unlike something I would like to have written, only I don't remember doing that either. Maybe Scott talked about it with someone other than me. Maybe he wrote it.
