Daniel Pinkwater

He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. He describes his father as a "ham-eating, iconoclastic Jew." He and his family moved to Chicago, where he was raised.

He attended Bard College.

Pinkwater tends to write about social misfits who find themselves in bizarre situations, such as searching for a floating island populated by human-sized intelligent lizards (Lizard Music), exploring other universes with an obscure relative (Borgel), or discovering that their teeth can function as interstellar radio antennae (Fat Men from Space). They are often, though not always, set in thinly—or not at all—disguised versions of Chicago and Hoboken, New Jersey. He often includes Chicago landmarks and folkloric figures from his childhood in 1950s Chicago, regardless of when the book is set. An example of this is the recurring character the Chicken Man, a mysterious but dignified black man who carries a performing chicken on his head. This character is based on a shadowy figure from 1950s Chicago; after Pinkwater made him a lead character in Lizard Music he received letters from Chicago residents who remembered the Chicken Man. Pinkwater also pays tribute to the Clark Theater (a repertory movie theatre on Clark Street in the Chicago Loop that changed features daily and stayed open all night), Bughouse Square, and Ed & Fred's Red Hots. Another common theme is Jewish culture, with characters incongruously speaking in Yiddish-influenced dialogue or participating in Borscht Belt culture. Characters sometimes have surnames that append the "-stein" element familiar in some Jewish names to names suggesting other ethnicities (e.g., "Wentworthstein").

In 1995, Pinkwater published his first adult novel, The Afterlife Diet, in which a mediocre editor, upon dying, finds himself in a tacky Catskills resort populated by "circumferentially challenged" deceased.

Pinkwater authored the newspaper comic strip Norb, which was illustrated by Tony Auth. The strip, syndicated by King Features, was cancelled after 52 weeks.[1] The daily strips were released in a 78-page collection by MU Press in 1992.

Pinkwater is also a longtime commentator on National Public Radio. He regularly reviews children's books on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. For several years, he had his own NPR show: Chinwag Theater. Pinkwater is also known to avid fans of the NPR radio show Car Talk, where he has appeared as a (seemingly) random caller, commenting, for example, on the physics of the buttocks (giving rise to the proposed unit of measure of seat size: the Pinkwater), and giving practical advice as to the choice of automobiles. In the early 1990s Pinkwater voiced a series of humorous radio advertisements for the Ford Motor Company.

Following an appearance by Pinkwater on the Public Radio International program This American Life,[2] his book The Devil in the Drain ended up on challenged book lists at numerous children's libraries.[3]

In April 2012, a story attributed to Daniel Pinkwater, "The Hare and the Pineapple", was used on a standardized exam for 8th grade students in New York. The story was based on Pinkwater's short story, "The Story of the Rabbit and the Eggplant", which he had sold to the testing company.[4] The published version changed the racer from an eggplant to a pineapple, and changed the moral of the story.[5] Students were asked two perplexing questions: "Why did the animals eat the pineapple?" and "Which animal spoke the wisest words?"[6] These questions baffled students.[7] City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott issued a statement saying improvements on the state exam will be made in the future.[8] The New York Daily News staff sent the question to Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, and he was stumped as well.[9]

• "Daniel Manus Pinkwater". Entry in "Contemporary Authors Online", Thomson Gale, 2005. Accessed 2005-09-27.

• Hogan, Walter (2001). The Agony and the Eggplant: Daniel Pinkwater's Heroic Struggles in the Name of YA Literature. Lanham, Md [u.a.]: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810839946.
• Nathan-Kazis, Josh (10 October 2014). "How Daniel Pinkwater Became My Own Personal Guru". The Jewish Daily Forward.
• McGinty, Alice B. (2003). Meet Daniel Pinkwater. New York: Powerkids Press. ISBN 9780823964062.
• Pinkwater, Daniel (1987-11-08). "The Revenge of Pinkwater". The Washington Post.
• Waldrop, Howard (1989-10-01). "Daniel Pinkwater Weighs In". The Washington Post.

• Pinkwater's Official site
• The P-Zone: Unofficial Pinkwater Site
• Daniel M. Pinkwater at IMDb