Erica from Learning Seeds

April 6, 2020

Dear Mr. Pinkwater, I am now 30 years older than when I first read and re-read your books. I’m now an early childhood educator working to support my students online during Covid school closures. For many years I featured your book, The Big Orange Splot, in my classrooms and I shamelessly copied photos from the books to help children learn to literally change your dream houses into their own. You never caught me because these  mostly remained in backpacks and under beds in the housing projects of Chicago. Now it turns out that an NPR radio host, who will be reading your book to children, also adores your books. This time, I’d like to prepare online materials using whatever I have in my home (which turns out to be multiple copies of the Big Orange Splot) so I can create visual materials to help young children, especially our students with autism, follow along and extend their imagining after they hear the story. So I am wondering, if I scan and copy images of the book for this purpose, how many chickens are you likely to send to Boston to hen-peck me into ceasing the scanning of your artwork?

With gratitude either way for many years of delightful ridiculousness,

Erica

Sharon Sherrard

April 5, 2020

Hello, Mr. Pinkwater!  My kids absolutely loved The Wuggie Norpal Story, as did the kids at the elementary school where I was the librarian and reading teacher for 15 years.  My copy has gone missing and we are all broken-hearted!  Why has it never been reissued?  The prices for used copies are completely nuts, and I’m pretty sure you are not getting even a cut of that money! Re-publish, re-publish!!

Nick

April 5, 2020

Oi Pinkwater,

What does Norwegian Vole-moss tea taste like? I have always wanted to try it. I imagined it tastes like a smokey lapsang tea, so I drink that a lot. Do you know if I’m at all close? I want to try it. Please help me.

In solidarity,

…nick

Sitara

April 2, 2020

Dear Mr.Pinkwater, My name is Sitara. I really like how you make the books so interesting. Where do you get your inspiration? I think your books are awesome!

Carol Schulz

April 1, 2020

Just this morning we read in The Hartford Courant of the death of Tomie DePaola. Our children, who are now in their forties, grew up reading all of Tomie’s and your books. We were, (and still are) great fans.  Our favorite book of that vintage is The Wuggie Norple Story. It was such a good match of author and illustrator!  Thank you so much!

We really miss hearing you review books on public radio.

Carol Schulz

Christina Webster

March 30, 2020

Hello! When I was seven years old I discovered a copy of “The Hoboken Chicken Emergency” in my school library.  I checked it out immediately and endeavored to keep it forever.  After multiple renewals, the crusty librarian finally surrendered: “Take it! No one ever checked it out before you anyway “ (No offense, Mr. Pinkwater…I went to a very old Catholic School and anything less than “Lives of the Saints” or the Pope John Paul comic books were frowned upon during SSR.  In fact, nature books,  a few Beverly Cleary titles, and “Gorllas in the Mist” were all banned shortly after arrival. How your  book made it past the nuns s is beyond me!)  It became lusted after by my peers and I had to start leaving it home (per Sr. Marie Timmons’ order).  I have kept it for more than three decades, always keeping it on my “treasured books shelf.”   Yesterday, I went to take a picture of the cover (another long story related to panic chicken buying) and IT WAS GONE.  There couldn’t be a much happier ending to this story, however,  because I found it in my ten year old daughter’s room.  It is now her favorite book and she has been reading from it to her best friend, Charlie, while they are on isolation break from school.   I have read most of your other books, but “The Hoboken Chicken Emergency” is a multi-generational treasure.  Thank you!!!

Galusha Sturdley

March 29, 2020

Dear Daniel,

Some of my first contact with the world of books was with your books, especially Lizard Music, Snarkout Boys, The Neddiad, and Alan Mendelssohn. This was all from the time I was one. You may have intended these books to be facetious, Daniel, but for years, your books were my expectation of the workings of the Real World. Avocado computers? Sure! Giant turtles? Sure! Musical lizards? All righty! You existed, and my father’s job used to be as a juggler who wore a hat shaped like a chicken, so why couldn’t the rest be real? This, understandably, changed me into the warped, crazy individual I have become, and will ever be, a human being who gets excited over the little hot dog stand in Hoboken Terminal (it’s still there) and who, early in life, adopted a religion made up of giant chickens, oriental gardens, and inter-dimensional superhighways. It was also you who helped, with Robert Nifkin, provide me with the courage to ask that I be placed anywhere but a public high school. For this, I feel compelled to offer my thanks to you for making me who I am today.

leah smith

March 26, 2020

You are always so giving with your talent. Consider contacting @levarburton (twitter) for his www.levarburtonpodcast.com/. He is looking for childrens stories it’s legal to use. I think it would be welcome by everyone, and maybe introduce new kid-os to your delightful writing.

Terry Gawryk

March 26, 2020

Dear Mr. Pinkwater,

Thank you for the delightful essay, “Where is the Grease of Yesteryear?” from Pig Whistle, which I recently read in American Food Writing, edited by Molly O’Neill.

I’m a native Chicagoan, of not so tender years myself.  Though I wasn’t my immigrant parents’ “anchor baby” I was born at Cook County Hospital.   It’s been a matter of some inflated self-esteem, that I have tried to frequent every neighborhood,  hot dog stand and fast food joint that I have ever come across in my own perigrinations about town, at least once.  And though I can imagine Fred’s, I don’t seem to know it.  Did you perhaps rename it “Fred’s” to protect the innocent, or to repay curmudgeonly Fred for his studied, Chicago blue-collar indifference: “Yeh. So What?”.  Doesn’t matter, either way.  I’m just curious which place and where it is or was located.

My house ain’t on fire, so there’s no need to jump up to your computer to send a reply.  If you’re reading this about the time that I sent it on March 25, 2020, then you know that Fred may not be serving “food” now anyway.

Kevin Cheek

March 25, 2020

I just saw your coming soon announcement for Adventures of a Dwergish Girl 

WooHOOOO!!!

Are you going to weblish it chapter by chapter as you have the previous novels?

Can’t wait! (ok I can wait, but I don’t promise to enjoy waiting).

Ryan Retherford

March 24, 2020

Hello Mr. Pinkwater,

What a Pleasure to have found this website! Such a treasure trove.  Thank you for making so much content available, I’m having a ball!

I discovered Lizard music at around 10 years old and remember it as not only my first “chapter book” but my standalone favorite for that period of my life.  You are solely responsible for the ensuing love of reading I developed and I thank you for that.

I’m 42 now and sharing it with my soon-to-be 8 year old son.  He has exclaimed several times that he “loves it!” and always wants me to read more before I tell him it’s time for bed.  I am so pleased that he likes it.  Another memory that I will hold dear for which I am indebted to you.

A few nights ago, as we were reading, I was stunned to find an obscure yet familiar-to-me literary reference; Rene Daumal’s Mount Analogue.  My mind was blown.  What was that title doing in this YA novel?!  Whenever I last read Lizard Music all those years ago, I would’ve read right past it without a second thought. Now however it elicited in me the same warm and magically mysterious sensation that your writing did.  I read Daumal’s book just a few years ago and I remember thinking that it reminded me of Lizard Music!

At 18, a dignified and sagely wheelchair- bound woman that I’d befriended introduced me to Gurdjieff and his wonderfully esoteric and convoluted complexities.  I devoured much of his work as well as many of his students’.  He was a jumping off point for me spiritually and philosophically.  I ventured out from there but never forgot him and his influence.  He seems to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance in some circles these days and I have encountered him via a number of unexpected avenues, yours being the most recent.

So then, I wonder, what if any connection do you have?  I read somewhere here about your involvement with a cult and I pondered if it was somehow affiliated with a 4th way school ( I myself was briefly a member of one in my early twenties).  Which then makes me curious, should you be willing to share,  about your spiritual journey in general.  What paths and detours did you take and where do you find yourself now?  My fondness for you and your writing hopes to find that we are simpatico in some way, that we’ve travelled some of the same trails.  I certainly don’t want to pry but, if you can, do tell! 🙂

In the meantime, thank you so much for all the work you’ve created!  I’m excited to explore more of it with my son.

Kindest regards,

Ryan

Kris Spoor

March 22, 2020

Hello Mr Pinkwater,

I first discovered your book The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror when I was 10 years old, in the bottom, dusty shelf of my school’s library in Manila. It was the only book of yours in our library and I may have borrowed it at least 5 times throughout my years there. One of the regrets I have in my life is not stealing it from the school library before I graduated.

Anyway, I just wanted to say how much I love your books and what a joy it is to introduce it to my own child (aged 8). She’s finally old enough to understand the jokes and references, although saying that, living in Christchurch, New Zealand is probably diametrically opposite to life in Hoboken. (We don’t have access to proper Hot & Spicy Oil.)

We’re almost done with Borgel and just because I need to ask a question, do you have a recommendation on what to read aloud next? I’m thinking the first Snark Out Boys. I don’t think my 8 year old can handle Young Adult Novel just yet.

Joseph Baptist

March 19, 2020

On behalf of my studnets and their families, thank you for providing these audiobooks for free.  They say that laughter is the best medicine, and you are a heroic provider of laughter.

Thank you for your great books, and your kind and generous heart.

Kimberly Hardy

March 19, 2020

Good afternoon Mr. Pink water.

Our school district is scrambling like many others to find/create supplemental materials for our students while closed for the Coronavirus. Many of us are reading some of our favorite books to our students via the school website/Facebook/YouTube.

My K-5 music students are hoping to have their annual program once school is back in session…the theme is “Imagination”. Growing up your book, The Big Orange Splot, was one of my favorites and still is. I would like permission to record a reading of the book for my students.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kimberly Hardy

Music K-5

Endy and Locust Elementary Schools, Stanley County Schools, NC

Jackie Cash

March 17, 2020

Well, as one of the first survivors of this particular plague, I just wanted to tell you what got me through it, and my intention in telling you is that I want you to get through it.

I like you, you see, and I would like it if you lived.

I was able to Ward it off with a combination of ( raw ) garlic toast, sunlight, actually eating vegetables and the ever-popular chicken soup.

I am a person who prefers to subsist on pretzel rods and Laughing Cow Cheese, so let me tell you being forced to eat my vegetables, and raw garlic, and to go into sunlight of all things! These are desperate measures I would not recommend except in times of plague and I do heartily recommend them to you my beloved Mister pink water

I’m sorry you had to come to Eeyore’s book so often in the 1980s they were really hoping you would meet me and my father was absolutely insensible to my pleas and he would take me about 40 miles away. He had his troubles and I have to say you helped me in a lot of them in particular the phrase “some people are just pre-civilized” was very helpful in regard to that man. I love you, take care of yourself, stay afloat.  Yours, Jackie Jack Cash