Jason Unger

August 17, 2008

Mr Pinkwater,

I am writing you in the middle of my god-only-knows-how-many-times re-read of Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars.

After telling my wife about how influentual your book was to me as a 10 year old, she tracked a copy and bought it for me around 6 years ago.Every couple of years or so I pick it up and can immediately see what drew me in and affected me.

Your book made me feel confident about being a Leonard Neeble, a skinny short Jewish kid that wasn’t into football or ninja stars like the rest of the kids in my school. And I ran with it. I made my own opinions–decided who was worth being friends with for myself, not based on some mass clique histeria. And to this day, continue to seek out obscure facts about all sorts of subjects because it’s interesting, and you never know who you are going to surprise, or what can come from that knowledge.

I now have children of my own (7,7,1 years old) and I look forward to introducing them to your work.

Thank you for writing that book. It makes me smile to this day. If you are ever in Connecticut I’d love to buy you a beer.

Jason Unger

Father, Artist, Creative Director, Nice guy

Milford Connecticut is a neat town. I have been there twice. Both times I had breakfast in that little place with all the photos of buildings on fire--is it still there?