A reader

January 16, 2002

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

I am 11 years old, and I am the only person I know my age that is reading your books. For my writing class, we are doing biographies on a famous person, and I chose you. Anyhoo, when I first discovered your books, it was Christmas Eve of 2000.My family went over to our friends of the family’s house. Some of my other relatives were there.That night, from the friends,(they are my parents age) I got this really thick book. I thanked them. I didn’t read it until summer vacation the next year. It was 4 Fantastic Novels with DANIEL PINKWATER at the top of it. I read the books in the order they were in. The first one was Borgel. I loved it soooo much!! The next book was Yobgorgle: Mystery Monster of Lake Ontario. I had finally found my favorite author- YOU!! I also read, The Worms of Kukumlima. That was pretty cool. I started to read The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror. On December 11, I finished Alan Mendolsohn, the Boy From Mars . I loved it. I don’t know how, but I think you should make a sequel. It’s a real cliff-hanger. Ughh!! About 20 years ago, before I was born, my cousin wrote a letter to you, he was probably about 8 years at the time and he had really experienced vocabulary, and he knew your home address because he got it from my aunt’s friend. I think you were confused. I ‘ll have to ask him about it. He’s about 28 now.

It's interesting--there have been a few posts lately in which people mention that they never meet anyone who has heard of me, or that they are the only person they know who has read my stuff. And yet, my books sell pretty well. I make a decent living on the royalties. A statement came in recently, and a particular title had sold 91,000 copies--that's a lot of books, and a lot of readers. I've lived in cities with way less than 91,000 people. And I've written a lot of books...must be getting close to 100. I really don't think it's that you are the only person you know who is your age and reading my books. I think the others are not admitting it.