Alicia Cheatham
Post #4308 – 20160822
August 22, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Fat Men from Space was my first ever favorite book, and you my first ever favorite author. I read Fat Men when I was in fifth grade, 30-odd years ago and am beside myself now, as a new fifth grade teacher, reading your stories to my own class. We're in the midst of Cat Whiskered Girl, and it gets applause at the end of each chapter. Thank you! If we do an author study, maybe we could send you some interview questions?
Alicia Cheatham
Clifford Street Elementary
Los Angeles
Daniel replies:
Do other authors get mail like this? I suppose so. Still, your first-ever favorite book, and now a book of mine gets applause when you read to your class. (Probably the applause is for such a neat teacher--but I'm associated.) Wow. You can send me interview questions, yes you can.
BH in Maryland
Post #4300 – 20160807
August 7, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Could you please get in touch with Osgood Sigerson and Ormond Sacker to let them know that we may be expecting a new rash of criminal activity by Wallace Nussbaum in the near future? This news, which cannot have escaped the notice of Nussbaum, seems to indicate we may be on the verge of something big:
www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46658/title/Orangutan-Imitates-Human-Speech/
Additionally, I noticed avocados were on sale this past week at my local supermarket; I am not a believer in the concept of "coincidences".
Thank you very much for relaying this crucial information.
Daniel replies:
Human residents of the areas to which orangutans are indigenous have, for a very long time, maintained that the apes can speak, but are careful not to let humans know for sure, lest they then put them to work. Outsiders, being arrogant and generally racist, assumed this was just folklore or an old joke. Many things get missed this way.
Rickles
Post #4303 – 20160807
August 7, 2016
Mr pinkwater:I am writing for a very odd reason. Im really just seeing how your doing! "That's not very odd", you might say. But really, people don't take the time to check in on anyone anymore what with their blogs and Pokemen (or whatever the plural of that stuff is). Anyway, I read 'Lizard Music' for the first time in the fourth grade and after the inevitable happened (it having blown my mind and radically shaping nearly every part of me including an undying love of chickens and run-on sentences), I filed it and the memory of you away in my brain for quite a long time. Don't worry you were next to the bathroom and a bunch of old 'Mad' magazines up their in my brain. I came across my cherished copy of Lizard Music today (you inscribed it to me some years ago and even drew a picture of a handsome man that is either you or Ricardo Montabon) and it made me think "How the heck is that guy anyway?? " So? How you doing???
Daniel replies:
Doing about the same, and hope you are as well. (What do you mean """"run-on sentences?"""")
Amber Grey
Post #4301 – 20160807
August 7, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
I am truly fascinated by your books and would love to have your opinions about a grand deal of things. I have just read Blue Moose and loved it completely. Would you be interested in doing any interviews or readings for us?
Warmest regards,
Amber Grey
Daniel replies:
""""Us?"""" Who's us? Amber Grey? Could have something to do with perfume, or whales?
R G-S
Post #4296 – 20160711
July 11, 2016
Just another acknowledgement of appreciation by a parent who raised a healthy happy and successful kid with liberal doses of Pinkwater readings. I miss terribly NPR's Christmas readings of "Wizard Crystal" (which I preferred to the annual reading of "Grandma Stambaugh's Sour Cream Cranberry Sauce Recipe") and I really think that in an era of weight-loss and fitness guru-ery ("guru-dom"? "guru-ism"?) the world would be well-served by your marketing of plaques, t-shirts, and even books devoted to the wisdom of the Gorilla in "Fat Elliot And The Gorilla".
Daniel replies:
Thanks for acknowledging. Of course, I repent of Fat Elliot and the Gorilla because it suggests it is quite possible for a fat kid to lose weight, whereas it is barely possible and I did not know that, but should have, and should have shown it. At the time I wrote that book, I had lost 100 pounds, and thought that was the accomplishment. I have since written several books in which fat kids do various happy healthy and successful things other than play against somatotype.
Jim Roberts
Post #4293 – 20160701
July 1, 2016
Is there any place I can read about your adventure with "the big yellow dog"?
Daniel replies:
Not a place such as the driver's seat of a vehicle in traffic, or anyplace where you would be operating machinery or likely to cause a danger to others. But, you are free to choose from a great many other places depending on your preferences and requirements. Many people like to read in comparatively quiet spots--public libraries are traditional and popular. The big yellow dog story you mention may be in some collection or other, or not, I don't recall.
I believe it's in """"Fish Whistle"""" -- Ed.
Andy
Post #4294 – 20160701
July 1, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
Did you hear about the large helium discovery in Tanzania?
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36651048
This reaffirms my belief in the wisdom of The Worms of Kukumlima.
Andy
Daniel replies:
And yet I couldn't get anyone to invest in my sticky blob company.
Gwen G.
Post #4291 – 20160625
June 25, 2016
Thanks so much for your books. As a child I wasn't interested in reading until I read Lizard Music. Your books made me a life long reader! Thank you Mr Pinkwater!!
Gwen
Daniel replies:
You're not the first person to pay me this very high compliment. I can't say it was my object to make you a lifelong reader...but I have always thought that writers, and artists of all kinds, ought to respect the people who read or otherwise experience the art. I think I have done that, mostly...and I think that is why many people, encountering my work, have found out that they like to read. So I am going to assume that you are intelligent, and disliked things you were given to read that seemed to suggest that you were not. It's a big honor to have a reader like you.
Rick Smith
Post #4287 – 20160613
June 13, 2016
I thought you might get a kick out of the Amazon price for Once Upon a Blue Moose (Library Binding). It's currently listing at $3,206.27 (it's used) and they don't even throw in the shipping.
I thought you were good, but if you can sell just 100 of those a year, you would be doing really well!
Daniel replies:
It must be in awful condition to be offered for such a low price. Library binding? Who'd want that? I have a perfect one, signed yet, that I might be willing to swap for a mint, low-mileage Chevrolet Corvette.
Christina
Post #4284 – 20160604
June 4, 2016
Hello Mr. Pinkwater,
I just created a letterbox based on The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and thought you might want to know. (Letterboxing is a scavenger-hunt type activity involving rubber stamps). Here's the link, should you be interested: www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?boxId=269640
Daniel replies:
This is cool! It has my (rubber) stamp of approval.
Jason T. Eness-Potter
Post #4283 – 20160602
June 2, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater, I have been a grateful recipient of your gifts for 3 decades now. It was in 1986 that my elementary school librarian recommended I read Lizard Music one Danial Manus Pinkwater. It was a unique moment in that it was the only time my librarian ever recommended a book to me. She said she thought it was the kind of book I would like and she was right. I loved that book and everything I ever read (or listened to) of yours after that. Now this is the part that is difficult to communicate in a way that I feel does justice to the flowing gratitude I feel for what you gave me, and, I imagine, many young, thoughtful kids like I was then, but I'll do my best–when I think back to that self-esteem gauntlet that is adolescence, I realize your books had a major role in giving me the rational perspective I needed to survive that time in my life. I've always wanted to tell you how grateful I am to you for all your brilliant, understanding and playful work. I remember in the author bio on the back flap of Lizard Music, it said something about (and I am paraphrasing a bunch on this one) how you believed creative ability was a gift from God. That is something that affected a skinny 12 year old boy from Iowa in ways that are hard to articulate in a digital message like this, but I tell you, I am grateful that you passed your gift from God on to me. You make this world a better place by being here, Mr. Pinkwater, and I thank you and thank you again. ( And sorta P.S. My daughter loves your writing and storytelling and humor also! She is 7 now and has been a fan of Larry and the 2 bad bears since she was 2.)
Daniel replies:
Thanks for the reminder. It comes at an appropriate time.
Daniel replies:
It's a honor that a book of mine is mentioned in such a fine piece of writing.
Mrs. Daisy
Post #4280 – 20160528
May 28, 2016
My fourth grade students just read a short biography about you. They say, "We love you! If you could write any other novel what would it be?"
Daniel replies:
You love me? I love you! If I could write any other novel.... I CAN write any other novel! I know how it's done, and I have done it a number of times, so I know I can do it. But what would the novel be? What would it be about? Who would it be about? These are questions I ask myself. Sometimes I don't come up with any answers for a year, maybe two years. I just walk around mumbling to myself. Then....well, this is the way it has always happened so far....I notice I am writing something. """"What is this thing I am writing?"""" I ask myself. It is a novel! I still don't know what it's about, so I keep writing. So, I can't answer your question. I won't know what the book is until I write it.
Peter
Post #4279 – 20160528
May 28, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater,
I like to listen to ABC Piano, so every now and then I hear the announcements you've recorded for that station. Your advert, though, has made me think.
You are now advertising your wonderful books "for as little as $2.99" on Amazon. But that kind of implies "hey, at least they're cheap". I doubt that that's really the message you want to convey.
Wouldn't it be more inticing to say something like "Many of my wonderful books are available on Amazon. They are riveting reads for children and young adults, and they make perfect birthday gifts." That way you're advertising your books as fun reads.
It's just a thought, maybe it can be of use to you.
Kindest regards,
Peter de Frankrijker
The Netherlands.
Daniel replies:
I will explain everything. Well, not everything. I will explain a couple of things. First, I do not know what announcements of mine are going out on ABC Piano as it is heard in the Netherlands. Obviously, if it is my voice, and I say my name, it is something I have recorded in the past few years. The content of ABC Radio, Radio Mozart, Radio Chopin, etc., varies from country to country or region. Here in USA Radio Mozart carries horrible and annoying commercials for all kinds of things you would never buy. Webmaster Ed, who is in Canada, hears just the music, and station identification in French by Nicolas Goyet, the program director and owner, and in English by me, just a kid who always wanted to work with Mozart. I know the occasional advertisements for my books are weak--I've never been good at that sort of thing. The only reason I recorded them was so Nicolas could feel I was receiving something in return for all the station IDs and announcements. You, on the other hand, appear to have a flair for it, so I appoint you my advertising agent in Holland and most of Europe. Do a good job and I will increase your commission.
Matthew Kile
Post #4274 – 20160522
May 22, 2016
Dear Mr. Pinkwater. At 36 years of age, I have read "Lizard Music" at least once a year since my 3rd grade teacher read it aloud to our class some 28 years ago. I daresay it is tied with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as my favorite work of fiction. When I told my girlfriend how much this book meant to me, she sat down and read it cover to cover, absolutely enthralled. One thing has bothered me for nearly three decades however. Who do you suppose removed the "Modern Lizard Quintet Plays Mozart" record album cover from the front window of the abandoned music store in Hogsboro? I always doubted it was the Chicken Man, AKA Charles Swan. Do you suppose it was some other agent of the lizards, perhaps Shane Ferguson? Thank you in advance for your answer, and thank you for this superb piece of literary work which will remain with me forever.
Daniel replies:
The thing is, the person who would know the answer to that question no longer exists. I used to be that person, but I'm unable to help with this. It is barely possible that I unwittingly addressed the matter in some more recent work of fiction--but I wouldn't know. Have you looked into any of my novels written in this century?
