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About 30 years ago I read The Snarkout Boys and everything changed. I never knew a book could be so powerful. Then I got Lizard Music and any others I could get. Then I just started reading everything by everyone. Daniel Pinkwater led me to Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut and they remain my holy trinity who shape and inspire me. I'm now 41 and halfway through reading The Neddiad and it is like I'm a kid again. I have a 10 year old niece that so far has said she doesn't like reading. I hope my Christmas gift this year of a big box of Pinkwater will change that. Thank you Mr. Pinkwater for everything.
And this is more or less the reason I wake up smiling every morning.
I fell in love with this story teller when he shared the tale of Sneaky Nose. And now I see an adorable pup in the family portrait. I'm so looking forward to purchasing Yetta for my friend's 60th birthday. He was raised in Brooklyn, a nice Jewish boy, and his wife is from the lower(?) east side, a nice Puerto Rican girl. Please don't spill the beans if you know Bobby and Sandy.
Schtoom's the word!
I will, I promise, never have Yetta for Shabbat dinner.
My cousin Anne is married to David Pinkwasser. He was a rabbi and believe it or not is now an airline steward for Southwest Airlines. Maybe there is a book there some where.
My cousin think you and her husband may be related.
Any thoughts?
I hope, for his sake, that Rabbi/steward Pinkwasser is not related to me. If he is, it would mean he is related to the Pinkwaters I am related to.
Thank you so much for Yetta The Beautiful Chicken- I grew up hearing stories, embellished with Yiddish words and phrases, told by my grandmother , and so loved having that brought to life, with colorful words and pictures, in a marvelous book.
I could not have done it without Jill to illustrate, Webmaster Ed to help with Yiddish, and nice readers to read enjoy it.
Just heard "Beautiful Yetta" on NPR, and I wanted to let you know that as a kid growing up in Brooklyn (Avenue I at Albany Avenue), I regularly took a southerly 10-minute walk with my father, arriving at, guess what...a CHICKEN FARM...right in the middle of Flatbush! It was crowded in by high-rise apartments, but it was an honest-to-goodness chicken farm. (By the time I turned 12 it had been replaced by yet another high-rise, so that's, I guess, why Yetta didn't find it.)
You never know. She might find it in a subsequent book.
Mr. Pinkwater -
Do you recall a place of business in Hoboken called "Nelson's Marine Bar"? I ask because upon a recent re-read of Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire", I noticed that he wrote the introduction to the book in that place in 1967.
Just curious about this intersection in space and time of two literary behemoths.
I remember the name, but I'm unable to remember which bar it was. See, Prohibition was ignored in Hoboken, and as a result River Street was pretty much nothing but bars from one end to the other, patronized by people who came over from New York. There were additional bars on adjacent streets, also on Hudson Street and Hudson Place, and also some on Washington Street, and on street corners scattered throughout the mile-square city. After repeal, Hoboken still held an edge for drunks, as closing time in Manhattan was something like 2:00 AM, and in Hoboken nominally 4:00 AM, so the ferries would be crowded with the still-thirsty. There weren't quite as many bars when I lived there, but still a disproportionate number. If Abbey favored the places that still offered the free lunch, we might have been in the same one at the same time. I liked the place where Charles Dickens, Stephen Foster, and Ernest Hemingway were known to frequent, but not all at once. (Now you've got me remembering: Glass of beer 15 cents, clam broth, pickles, onions, bread, beans, scrag ends of corned beef and pastrami--gratis. For the affluent, a bowl of steamer clams was, I think, 75 cents, buck and a quarter for a pot of them. Throw the shells on the sawdust floor. Yum.)
I always enjoy hearing you read children's stories with Scott Simon on NPR, but only today I discovered your Yiddishkeit, re: Beautiful Yetta.
As I listened today though, I wished you had emphasized a little more the dialect (especially prosodic or musical) aspect of the great dialogue in Beautiful Yetta. Remember The Goldbergs TV show from the 1950's? “So, how's th' femly?" a line my dad said I heard on that show, was a dialect question I used in my early childhood to entertain my half-Jewish family. I know dialect issues can be sensitive, but if carefully done can be great fun as well as educational.
For years I looked forward to teaching the High Point (Hampton-Brown/National Geo.) unit that used Fat Men from Space, to launch intermediate-level high school ESL students to write their own ludicrous fantasy stories, and yet build real academic skills thereby. ESL-teaching led me to occasionally use dialects to improve students’ listening and speech.
My web project, www.digitalcaptions.org, uses dialect features to develop students' speech fluency. I recently retired and have time now to do more with what was mostly a spare-time avocation (though I did patent the associated software for it along the way). You can see how I used John Kennedy's inaugural to teach his dialect to students. It's more academic than you might want, but gives the idea that the music of speech can be expressed in print. Would you like to emphasize that more in any of your work?
Did you entertain your half-Jewish family or only the Jewish half? Thanks for the advice--just what I needed.
Señor Pinkwater,
I'm looking into getting a Lizard Music tattoo, perhaps a lizard holding a rock instrument/microphone with a cheesy tattoo-scroll under him reading "Reynold." That's not necessarily the final design, just an idea.
The issue: what image should I use? Have you ever done illustrations of the lizards (my brain isn't always the most not dumb remember thing) from the book? Has somebody else? Should I have an artist friend read the book and then draw me a Reynold?
Hmm. Perhaps I shall have a contest.
I need my lizard, sir.
Need.
Oh, and by the way, your books helped inspire me to do the writing and drawing that I do now.
Thanks for that.
Sincerely,
benjamin sTone
I am not advising anyone about any tattoo! Here is my thinking--you may love my book Lizard Music, you may love lizards, you may love music, you may think a tattoo like that would be the coolest thing in the world...now. But tastes change. At one time (when I was about 5) I loved extra-well-done hamburgers on wonder bread with mustard. Now I have found better things to love. Your tastes may change and develop too. And even if you love my book, and lizards and music, and even tattoos all your life, will you love the work the tattoo artist does, or is it possible you will see much better drawing that you like more? That stinking tattoo of a lizard who looks like a duck, holding a crummy-looking guitar will be on you for the rest of your natural life, (only the color will fade, and the lines will get fuzzy, and your skin will get wrinkly).
Hello, wonderful Mr. DP! I'm a librarian and write a webcomic set in a public library called 'Shelf Check"--today's strip mentions you, so I thought I'd post the link here in case you'd like to see it:
http://shelfcheck.blogspot.com/2010/07/shelf-check-422.html.
Thanks for all you do!
I checked Shelf Check. I am pleased you mentioned me, but I think you should have had me appear as a character in the strip. I am easy to draw, using a compass, or the bottom of a cup or glass to get my general shape--then you put a smaller circle for the head, and two even smaller circles for the eyeglasses--and there you have me!
Hello, Daniel!
Years ago, when I was a young and odd and impressionable child reading every book of yours that I could find in the Broome County Public Library system, I learned from you that every boy should have a chicken, and that following odd and crooked paths and people is the surest way to a good adventure.
So I would like you to meet Tillie, our most favorite – and crooked – chicken.
Tillie was born with a crooked neck somehow, and we took her home as one small, crooked young chick in our very first flock of four chickens. We brought her back to the feed store the next day and asked if they could fix her. They offered us another chicken from the same brood as an exchange but we didn't like the "fix" they had in mind for little Tillie, so we took both her and her sister home. If there was a chicken chiropractor or even a credentialed mad professor in the phone book we would have given that a try, but instead my very patient and loving wife hand-fed our weak and tired Tillie scrambled eggs, and vitamins, and electrolytes. After a few weeks she was no longer weak and tired, just crooked, but she owed us lots of scrambled eggs. Several months after that, she began paying us back with beautiful and delicious blue-green eggs that she lays to this day. She scratches and pecks and plays, and has chicken adventures, and hops "hup-hup-hup" up and down our chicken ramp like a happy chicken should. It's impossible for us to look at her without smiling no matter what kind of day we're having.
It's hard to say what may or may not have happened had something else not happened, what with butterflies flapping their wings all the time, but it has occurred to me recently, as I've been revisiting and purchasing many of your beloved books, that your writing has influenced me in ways that made it more possible for me to love a little crooked chicken. For that I thank you, and Tillie thanks you too.
If you ever come to California we would be honored to make you an omelette.
p.s. - I recently read The Hoboken Chicken Emergency to my wife and she thought it was just about the greatest thing ever. I plan to read her all of your chicken-themed books. Please keep writing stories about chickens!!
Tillie is a lovely chicken! I had an aunt with a similar physique. I hope you're aware of our most recent chicken-themed book, Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken. You may wish to read it to Tillie.
Dear Sir. Why are the pockets of my pants sewn shut? Best.
To discourage the slovenly habit of standing with your hands in them. A gentleman does not put his hands, or anything, in his trouser pockets. The pockets are there for some unknown reason shrouded in antiquity. You may carry your handkerchief, wallet, and other items in a pocket of your jacket or waistcoat. Or have your servant carry them.
I have a blog where kids review books. Today, Dharma, who's 5, reviews BEAUTIFUL YETTA. If you'd like to see her review, it's at: http://www.patzietlowmiller.com
Thanks!
Pat Zietlow Miller
Best review ever!
Have you ever seen a kid's version of the I L Peretz short story "Bontsha Zwieg" or "Bontsha the Silent"?
No, nor the adult version. I am happy to answer literary questions like this.
Dear Mister Pinkwater,
I read "Lizard Music" when I was a little seven year-old Weirdo (26 years ago) and I have adored your work ever since. Not only did you have odd characters and fun situations; you captured the vocabulary of my childhood inner self in a way no other author ever did. Your young characters were strange but not stupid, whimsical but not baseless. Their patterns of speech never seemed unreal or worse- condescending.
"Lizard Music" became my lifelong friend and it showed me that other Weirdos besides myself, my family and Dr Demento were out there and thriving. I will always be indebted to you for filling such a deep void in my life and for providing me with countless days and nights of joy and kinship through your books and radio appearances.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Hally
Well, that is about as handsome a compliment as a book can receive. Except for this one: The magnificent New York Review of Books children's collection, which only reprints books of genuine quality, has selected the very same Lizard Music for publication next year! So you can give copies to others. Meanwhile, maybe you'd like to read The Neddiad and/or Adventures of a Cat-Whiskered Girl and let me know if you think I am still on the same track 40 years later.
Daniel--
A link, forwarded by my daughter, proving that The Big Orange Splot is a true story. My three kids grew up on Orange Splot and Lizard Music. All three turned out better than most. Far better. Each got a personal copy of Orange Splot this past Christmas.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/owner-likes-orange-house-553469.html
Jeff
It is a widely held understanding that readers of mine turn out better than most. Thanks for confirming this.
Hi, its Riley i had a question well when i grow up i want to be an auther and i was wondering if it was fun and if it was easy.So thats about it thank you. - Riley
It is fun, and it is easy--for me. If it is fun and easy for you, then you might want to be a writer. There are writers for whom it is not fun and not easy, and they do it anyway--I don't understand why.
Daniel, my friend Matt and I stopped by to visit you and your wife at Oblong Books today. (We're the ones who gave you the Benjamin Franklin stein.) I purchased a copy of "Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken" and brought it home for my little girls. Ella, my 5 year-old, made me read it to her three times before bed. When I asked if she liked the story or the pictures better, she answered, "Both of them." Score two points for Pinkwater & Pinkwater.
What readers we have! It was nice to meet you and see Matt again.
ICH BIN YETE
MEIN YIDISHE NOMEN IZ YENTE
FUN MEIN BOBE....
I was just sent a copy of your Beatiful Yetta and loved reading the Yiddish, Spanish and English to my husband. I covered up the transliteration to see of I could read the Yiddish without looking at the transliteration.
Did you know that there were Yiddish chicken farmers in Petaluma California? I bet their chickens spoken a zayer guten Yiddish.
I'll be sharing this book with teachers and kids and family members far and wide. I may even have the opportunity to read it at the United Kingdom Literacy Conference in July and I'll be sharing it with teachers at Hofstra University in June....
There are a few other books with Yetta in the title. I don't know many Yetta's any more. My grandmother's name was Anglisized to Yetta from Yenta. My family called me Yenta Tilabenda for most of my growing up years.
Thanks for this opportunity. All the best. Keep writing for children and others. Un zei gezuntT
Yetta Goodman
A SHAYNEM DANK! There's something about that book! It appears to make people happy. It can't be the story--there hardly is one--but when Jill undertook to do the drawings she asked the editor, and she asked me, "How do you think I should draw Yetta?" We both said the same thing, "Make her beautiful and lovable." Or maybe it's the name. Do people smile when they see you?
I was very excited to see that Daniel and Jill are doing a signing in June, not very far (Rhinebeck) from where I live (Western Mass.). Unfortunately, it is a day that my partner (who loves loves loves the works of Pinkwater) has a commitment elsewhere. Will you be doing other signings in the near future?
No. We don't often do signings. I forget why.
Many years back DP did a radio essay on Golf and how it was started by Scottish "Village Idiots".
Where might I find this audio?
No idea--especially since I did not write it. I have only played one game of golf in my life, and had no way of knowing if the idiots were Scottish or not.
