Meg Finn

October 11, 2006

It’s Oct. 11, 2006…Everyday on my way home from TEACHING 8th grade math and science at Grayson Co. Middle School in Lietchfield, KY I usually listen to NPR for the duration of my 35 minute commute. Coincidentally and unfortunately today I heard your segment on All Things Considered. So, I want to know, are you always so negative about teachers? Were ALL your teachers horrible people? Did ALL your teachers humiliate you and ridicule you? Did you not have a single good teacher who you know is a good person and who you know busted their ass for you? Do you realize how much negativity teachers have to deal with all the time? How much criticism, cynicism, and slack we have to tolerate? It’s easy to be negative. Lots of people complain and whine all the time.

From a teacher’s perspective, teachers support ANY POSITIVE media, any POSITIVE comments. We are expected to be positive all the time, to keep kids positive, to keep them confident, to build confidence, to calm their fears, to build on their talents, and to help nourish weaknesses into strengths…all while being dragged through the mud and made to sound like we’re goblins in the night out to devour children and squash their dreams. I’m sorry you had some bad experiences through school…everyone does. I’m sorry your scars are so deep. I hope you have taken the initiative to become a mentor to some other poor child who may be struggling with something they are hindered by.

PLEASE, next time you speak on NPR or anywhere about teachers (public servants), please try to be positive. We are good people, most of us. Yes, I’m sure you had some assholes for teachers, but there are assholes everywhere, not just in schools. BUT, thankfully, there are far more good people in the world than bad. Hopefully you had many more good teachers than bad. I know I work with a LOAD of people who are motivated by making young people happy, safe, confident, and a little smarter.

Thank you for your time.

p.s. If you can read this, you might want to thank a teacher.

John

October 11, 2006

I enjoyed your review of your struggles with arithmatic. Mine were similar. And it was suggested that the Army might have a suitable career path for me (1968) rather than continuing to struggle with academia. But, I am stubborn. After the invention of the pocket calculator and its general distribution I went to graduate school for architecture. What a difference! Finally freed of the need to memorize and introduced to mathematic’s practical applications, I discovered that I loved mathematics. I didn’t know jocks had these problems, I had assumed it was restricted to the artist types, like me.

Suzanne Bishop

October 10, 2006

I am an elementary school librarian. I loved your books before I became one (a librarian) and now when I plop your books into my students’ hands, they go away perplexed come back for more, more, more. They love them too. And so, when I asked my students who we should invite to come visit us, naturally your name popped up immediately. I have looked on your website, and found nothing saying if, how, where, when, etc. you do author visits. Are you too busy? Do you enjoy children primarily from a distance? Would you consider a brief visit to a stellar elementary school, during which you would be swamped with adulation (and filled with yummy homemade cinnamon rolls)?

Barbara

October 9, 2006

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

Three people at least (and probably hundreds more) in Portland, Oregon, would be extremely thrilled if you’d come and do a reading or something, so we could meet you in person:

1) my husband, who grew up in Chicago and remembers seeing The Chicken Man and his Chicken on city buses. His mama told him NOT TO STARE, it’s rude. He thought The Chicken Man and his Chicken were extremely interesting, and if they didn’t want people to stare, why were they doing tricks on the bus?

2) myself. I often read your books aloud to my husband at bedtime so we can end the day laughing…if we can stop reading “just one more chapter” long enough to actually end the day and turn out the light.

3) Sheila, who has opened a quirky little vegetarian restaurant called The Blue Moose. It is painted blue. The food is fabulous, and so inexpensive I don’t see how she can afford to keep feeding her customers. She named the restaurant after the actual Blue Moose, of course, and dreams of hosting a gala evening of Pinkwater fans to meet The Author. If you can’t come, she’d have to do it without you, but like the Chef, she’s probably too shy to summon your fans on her own account.

In any case, I would love to give her a Blue Moose poster, but I don’t see one on the website, just T-shirts and stuff. Did you make a poster of that same excellent illustration? If not, would you??

We have larger venues in town for you to visit, read, sign books etc, if that would be extra enticement — Powell’s City of Books, for instance (which you may have heard of…or not: by us, it’s famous!). But it would be a major thrill for Sheila and the Blue Moose Cafe crowd…and my husband, the Chicken Man Fan.

your faithful reader on the Upper Left Coast,

Barbara

Marge Daboll

October 3, 2006

I just finished reading “Walking My Dog” in the Wilderness magazine and had to tell you I loved it. Walking a dog has to be one of the least expensive and most rewarding experiences one can have.

I was reminded of walking my first greyhound. She was only 16 months old when we got her and had already been so badly mistreated that she was of no use for the track. It took me a year to get her socialized, and it took a lot of hugs and kisses and saying “It’s okay baby”.

At first I couldn’t get her out of the yard. She was in her haven. She thought she’d died and gone to heaven, and she had no intention of leaving. She finally realized that the walk was for her pleasure and that I would bring her back home.

She saw every leaf, she was fascinated by a plastic bag that fluttered. She was frightened by the crows having a convention in the trees until I turned her face up so she could see them.

Her first walk in the snow was a joy. The walks were shoveled. She walked in the piles where the snow had been piled, and looked at me as if to say “Isn’t this fun!!”. She would try to coax me to race with her. No way can I run 40 mph.

We lost her at age 7. She had a cancerous kidney

which was removed and was no longer a problem, but she got a blood infection, I think from the vet’s resident dog donor. At least I can realize

how much happiness I brought to her, but I miss her still. Thanks for listening.

Marge Daboll, for “Swifty”, kennel name “Fifi”

Daniel Norton

September 30, 2006

Did Daniel Pinkwater narrate “A Christmas Story?” The Internet Movie Database and Amazon.com say it’s so. Most otherwise believe that it was Jean Shepherd himself that narrated.

Alan Meyers

September 25, 2006

Mr. Pinkwater, I have just enjoyed reading LOOKING FOR BOBOWICZ. I was puzzled for a minute when we met the candy store operator Sean Vergessen, since that name sounded so familiar. I finally realized his name sounded like the name of that other candy store operator in LIZARD MUSIC, Shane Ferguson. I am just curious: when you recycle characters like that, do they tend to be characters based on people you have known in “real life?” I’m not sure why I suspect that that would be so — but I do. Just wondering. You are on my list, not only of all-time favorite writers, but of all-time favorite people, and your books are one of the things I most like to think about. Sincerely, Alan Meyers

Carlos Encinas

September 20, 2006

Well I’m a fourth grade teacher and reading with my class LIZARD MUSIC. I read it many years ago and found it entertaining. It still is except fot the lady with the big boobs part. That got me in trouble with my class. I didn’t know it was in there.

F. Crescimanni

September 20, 2006

Dear Mr. Pinkwater-

Mid-morning, aound 25 or so years ago, I was at home from school. I was that kind of kid who attracted all kinds of colds and other virulent non lethal airborne stuff so this was not terribly unusual. My absences from school exposed me to something more radical, more secret, and more influential, than anything you could find inside or outside of Hollywood CA (which, at the time, is where I lived) and that was The PBS Daytime Instructional Programming Network. Our TV upstairs only worked on 2 channels- 3 (for the Betamax) and 28, our local public broadcasting station. At some point, the downstairs TV broke. Being Hippies, my parents threw out the Broken TV and put art supplies on the table instead. The state of the TV upstairs was by design. This is one of the only things my parents did right when they were getting me past the edible/disposable stage of childhood, and I am forever grateful to them. The 1980’s was an abysmal decade for mainstream media of all kinds.

The thing about instructional TV that I lived for were the reading and creative writing shows. I especially liked Mr. Robbins. He would read a chapter or two from a book (actually he pre- recorded it) and while the story played he would take colored pencils and pastels and he would illustrate a scene from the story. He was a brilliant illustrator, and unbelievably versatile. I found this format absolutely hypnotic. I made lists of books from the show and checked them out at my library, or sometimes bought them from library sales.

The first episode of Mr. Robbins’ program I ever saw featured Lizard Music. Once I had your name, I read everything at the tiny west Hollywood branch library you wrote (Lizard Music,Wingman, Snarkout boys, Hoboken Chicken Emergency, Alan Medleson, Yobgorgle) and since then sought out everything I could get. I read other books recommended by Mr. Robbins and credit him for encouraging me to read rather than force my social life, but you achieved cult status as an author.

I have especially enjoyed Uncle Boris in the Yukon, as I am a dog trainer by profession, and live with dogs almost as smart as Jake (that is, they communicate with me but haven’t yet mastered even a rough imitation of human speech, and will do what I tell them to do with more vigor and enthusiam than sense) especially recognizng tiny aspects of your characters within the descriptions of your family members (or maybe I’m getting that backwards. I am dyslexic) I find the evolution of a story as interesting as the story itself, because it demonstated how much of YOU there is in every story. All writers do this to some degree, but most young adult books fail to capture that essence of both fantasy and belivability. The truth is, I could not believe in Trans-dimentional Magic wardrobes where a big lion acts as god, but I cannot tell you how many times I tried to stay up and catch the lizards playing on PBS before the color bars took over for 4 hours.

I have given your two anthologies to numerous cousins, nieces, and friends’ kids, in the interest of promoting independent thought and non-conformity to future generations. I am enjoying the serial format of the Neddiad. and so are my roommates. Just finished American Gods, another way cool road trip novel, and was delighted to see you doing one (uniquely pinkwater and without so much promise of violence, which nowadays is comforting)

I thank you, truly for the work that you do. Everyone, no matter what age, needs to hear it’s ok, hell, Even way cool, to be strange, free thinking, and physically imperfect! Especially kids, as they are often judging themselves based upon an unrealistic social standard.

As I don’t have children, I have read your books to my dogs as puppies, and they like you too. In fact my middle dog’s name is Magnus, who narrowly escaped becoming Manus due to the fact he needed a strong consinant in his name. I also didn’t like the idea of people thinking I was failing to make a distinction between the two species. (If they knew about story time, and dog movie night, it would be all over)

You rock.

deb o.

September 13, 2006

So picture this, I’m a 33 year old adult woman wandering around Barnes & Noble. My husband and i walk through the kids section (we do that even though we don’t have one of our own yet.) I stop in an aisle and say “Oh my god, it’s my chicken book!!!”

It’s even more entertaining then when I was a kid. I’m now having fun searching out all your books. All this time I’ve heard your commentaries on NPR and I never knew it was one of my all-time favorite authors. You were even that caller on car talk that made me laugh. you’ve been there for a laugh all the time and i had no idea.

Thanks for making my childhood and now adulthood fun.

Peggy

September 13, 2006

Daniel

If only you new this particluar friend of mine.

She has a real zest for, well, seeing things differently and I really dig that about her.

She is a brilliant “blogger” and has an enormous following, to which she keeps us all in stitches pretty much on a weekly basis. The pictures that she posts, the stories that tells (that are true) and the odd way that she occasionally looks at things, really makes her quite special.

This particular day, she told the story about The Wuggie Norple Story.. and I new – I take that back, I was compeled to write you.

Here is what she wrote, enjoy:

The best children’s book ever

You are probably familiar with my favorite book, The Wuggie Norple Story, by Daniel Pinkwater, because if we know each other in real life, and possibly even if we don’t, I have probably given you a copy of this book.

When Rose was about 2, I bought my first copy, or maybe I got it from the library. I don’t actually remember. What I do remember is sitting with my daughter on my lap in the rocking chair in the family room of our first house in St. Louis Park, and trying to read this book to her as a bedtime story. The only problem with that was I was soon laughing so hard that I couldn’t speak. I was choking, tears streaming down my face, scaring my child and annoying my husband. I don’t think I even made it past the first page before I lost it, and there were more than a couple of nights where I had to get out of bed and sleep on the couch because I could not stop giggling long enough to fall asleep without waking Pat up.

“In a little house, in a little village, not far away from Thunderbolt City, lived a whistle fixer named Lunchbox Louie. He had a wife named Bigfoot the Chipmunk and a little son named King Waffle.”

Well, that was enough to do me in. I managed to read Rose a different book and get her to sleep before I continued, but I think it was weeks before I could get the words out to read it to her again, and not surprisingly, she wasn’t all that amused. At age 2, she had a much more refined sense of humor than her mother. But really, how could anybody not laugh themselves sick over a six-year-old razorback hog named Papercup Mixmaster? Or a young horse named Exploding Poptart?

Rose’s nickname, as I have probably mentioned, is Wuggie, or Wugs. We give our kids nicknames that amuse us, but have nothing to do with who they are or what they like, evidently. Something else for them to mention to their therapists.

So tonight, I remembered that I’m down to my last copy, and I might find somebody having a bad day who needs it, so I went to Amazon to restock. Imagine my dismay at finding that The Wuggie Norple Story is out of print! Oh, it’s still available. You can buy it used, but the book that used to be $4.50 in paperback is going for anywhere from $34 to $168! I wanted to purchase ten copies, but obviously, that was not to be. I found one copy in “good” condition for twenty bucks on half.com, and I snapped it up.

If I have given you a copy of the best book in the world, The Wuggie Norple Story by Daniel Pinkwater, know that I won’t hold it against you if you sell it on ebay and buy yourself some Chanel lipstick and a pretty decent Starbuck’s card. Or a car payment.

So there you have it Daniel, a very funny gal indeed.. who has carefully placed that book in others hands, to ensure that they.. would also have tears streaming down their faces from laughing, creating their own memories.

Her daughters are now 20 and 15 by the way.

So, in my quest today I am searching for that elusive book for my friend. You wouldnt happen to have a hidden stash of Wuggie Books anywhere that I could purchase, would you.. to surprise her with huh???

I know.. I know.. you can’t blame a gal for trying though!

Peg

Mindy

September 11, 2006

Dear Mr.Pinkwater,

I myself do not really no what I am trying to find out,my friend read a series of books when he was young by a Secretary Hawkins, but this was an alias?I just want to know who wrote the books and maybe what the names of the books are?I would ask my friend but I would like to suprise him if possible by trying to find one of them.Thanks in advance for any info you have.

Mindy

Alex Aowei

September 10, 2006

Hi Mr. Pinkwater!

I had no idea this site existed until just now. I read ‘Alan Mendholson, The Boy From Mars’ when I was just a young kid and it was my favorite book, and although I am 32 now, it still remains one of my all-time favorite books.

I also write, or…channel…if you prefer, and I am writing a humorous story about a morbid goth boy from NY who visits Hawaii looking for Paradise, well there is more to it than that, but I would appreciate…and I know you must get requests like this all the time and I hope that I have not hit an annoying button with this…but I honestly would love any advice on where or who to submit this kind of story to see if I can get it published, and any other info…or like a dream…I can send it to you and you can criticize the heck out of it and I would love that! Thanks, ALex

Ann Robinson

September 9, 2006

I had to write and tell you what I read in the paper yesterday. You can check it out yourself at www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/09/08/100wir_b7worm001.cfm

It turns out they have known about giant earthworms in eastern Washington state for over 100 years. These earthworms are three feet long, pinkish in color, smell like a lily when handled, and can spit at attackers.

I had just finished rereading The Worms of Kukumlima, and thought you might like to know that the worms did not die off as suspected, or at least there is another colony on Earth. We should all be very careful – perhaps we can do a study of them without their knowing.

In the quest of science and genetic diversity and really interesting cool stuff surviving into the future, all Daniel Pinkwater fans everywhere should write to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service to petition them to list Driloleirus Americanus as an endangered species.

It lives in undisturbed volcanic soil(coincidence???) in eastern WA. There is not a lot of undisturbed soil out there and there is getting to be less all the time. That area is called The Palouse and it is where most lentils and split peas in the US are grown.

I thought you’d like to know!

A Fan Named Ann

Colin

September 9, 2006

Hey, Dav Pilkey! Iam one of your fans! I know you’re also Daniel Pinkwater, and I’ve read some of your most famous books! Captain Underpants, Ricky Ricatto’s mighty robot, The big orange splot, and Super Diaper Baby! By the way, is Frankenfart a single book or a full series? And I’ve got an idea for a Captain Underpants book! you could make this the name of your 11th book:

Captain Underpants and the trouble from the toilet terminaitors of Texas town! Love, Colin.