Pinkwater, Daniel Books - Page 2

4 : Fantastic Novels

Daniel Pinkwater, Scott Simon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

hate to rain on the parade, but 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful.

OK, first off I consider myself to have a decent (even above average) sense of humor. I'm always biting my lip to stifle giggles because my companions wouldn't get the joke. I love Lemony Snicket. I worship at the altar of Dave Barry. But, unlike a lot of readers here, I'm only mildly amused at most of Pinkwater's stuff. I enjoyed the "Borgel" story, but I was crushed at how lame [sorry] the "Snarkout Boys" sequel was. I loved the first, thought it was great. But I think it was the constantly switching viewpoint that sank the sequel. It also read like a first draft, particularly the werewolf monologues. That's what bugs me, how much better a lot of the stories could have been. Please, make them just a bit more accessible to new readers; sometimes the wackiness really goes into overload and it's too much to stay with the story.

Secondly, and this only really mattered in the "Snarkout" sequel, teenagers (at least the ones I know) don't talk like that! Even the biggest [nerd] at my old high school didn't sound like Scott Feldman, or really, Rat or Winston, for that matter. Though maybe they sounded like Pinkwater's high school peers. But if this doesn't matter to the majority of readers, maybe I shouldn't complain either.

Editorial Review:

Four-fantastic-books-in-one by the popular author of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency:

Borgel
Yobgorgle
The Worms of Kukumlima
The Snarkout Boys & the Baconburg Horror

Superpuppy: How to Choose, Raise, and Train the Best Possible Dog for You (How to Choose, Raise, and Train the Best Possible Dog for You)

Daniel Manus Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The best puppy book I've ever read 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I read this book when I was a little kid with my first puppy, and I checked it out at the school library. I read it from cover to cover about 20 times. It was amazing, and it helped me as a 12 year old to raise my dog. I loved it so much that I am recommending it for my Mom to use for her new puppy. It was very friendly and very helpful, and so appropriate to raising happy healthy dogs. This book is timeless. I can't wait to read it again.

Editorial Review:

First published more than 20 years ago, Superpuppy was instantly
celebrated for its unique approach to dog training, which emphasizes the importance of understanding a dog"s personality. Clarion is proud to announce the publication of a revised edition, updated for
contemporary readers and featuring brand-new cover art.
Award-winning authors Jill and Daniel Pinkwater share their enthusiasm and knowledge in this accessible guidebook. Readers will find advice on all aspects of puppy care, from how to pick the right puppy to the proper way to housebreak and train it. Enlivened by
personal anecdotes and enhanced by black-and-white illustrations, the new Superpuppy is sure to be embraced by loyal fans as well as a new generation of dog enthusiasts.

The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There

Daniel Manus Pinkwater

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Not yet published By: Houghton Mifflin

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Editorial Review:

A sequel to critically acclaimed THE NEDDIAD told from the point of view of Ned's friend, Iggy

La Brea Woman is missing. Valentino, too. The ghosts of Los Angeles are disappearing right and left!

Iggy Birnbaum is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, no matter what Neddie Wentworthstein and Seamus Finn say.

There's just the little matter of traveling to another plane of existence, first…and then, of course, not pissing off a witch once she gets there.

From L.A. to Old New Hackensack, fans of The Neddiad will be delighted to join up with Iggy, Neddie, Seamus, and the usual apparitional entourage for another weird and wonderful adventure by Daniel Pinkwater. As Neil Gaiman said about the first book: "it's funny and tender and strange and impossible to describe. What Pinkwater does is magic and I'm grateful for it."

THE IGGYSSEY is vintage Pinkwater: laugh out loud funny, incredible characters, dialogue, humor. And like THE NEDDIAD, this book will be similarly illustrated throughout by Calef Brown.

Ice Cream Larry

Daniel Manus Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Birth of the Cold 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

The former "Bongo Larry" returns as "Ice Cream Larry" in this delightful continuation of the Pinkwaters' series about the multi-talented polar bear. Jill Pinkwater's vivid, varied colors (pen and ink, and colored marker) and Daniel Pinkwater's droll prose combine for another hit. Here, Larry gets in trouble after eating 250 pounds of ice cream from the walk-in freezer at Cohen's Cones. Larry is full of excuses, including a claim that he ate the ice cream in his sleep! After hearing of his exploits ("Bear eats 1/8 Ton Ice Cream"), Mr. I. Berg comes to the Hotel Larry with a proposition to enhance the reputation of the Iceberg Ice-Cream Company: A new line of Larry ice cream bars, including codfish flavor. Somehow it all goes well, even with the company's dubious new slogan--a quote from Larry--"I do not feel sick!"

This is a simple yet very entertaining story that succeeds because of the dry humor that Pinkwater injects throughout the book. There's a bit of a wink to the reader, but it's never too obvious or condescending--Pinkwater plays it straight. Just about as good as "Bongo Larry," and printed on high quality paper with excellent illustrations, this would be an excellent gift for any animal/ice cream lover that you know.

Editorial Review:

Ice Cream Larry is a Marshall Cavendish publication.

Lizard Music

Daniel Manus Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

I Claudia's: Grace 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I remember the night that my grandmother gave me this book. My mom was in the hospital for what would have been her last round of chemo and I had been beaten up in school that day for tucking my pants into my argyle socks in a rather unsporting display involving football players, loose change, and vending machines. Pinkwater's book kept me sane through the sixth grade and then some. There are a whole bunch of physicists in my department who feel the same way. We are very much in debt to the Chickenman and some other friendly phantoms from Bughouse Square and Pinkwater's memory (real or not, we are smart enough as a collective to get back to them).

Introduce Your Young Reader To The Wonders Of Drug-Free Tripping! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Manus Pinkwater is a pretty cool kinda guy. He has the unique feature of being as tall sitting as he is standing, and that makes me wonder if the convex dimensions of an author's backside are somehow related to the quantity of his imagination. You see, Manus writes far-out books. No, no, I mean...realllly far-out books. I think he passes the Twilight Zone somewhere in route to where he goes to pen his creative little novels. Lizard Music may take the cake among everything straaaaange he's written, however. This story puts your brain in a food processor and hits frappe. What's it about? Oh, you want to know that, don't you? Okay.

Lizard Music is about a ten-ish young man named Victor, who is left one summer in the early 1970's in the custody of his free-loving teenaged sister, Leslie, when their parents take a summer vacation. Not ten seconds after the parents exeunt stage left Leslie does the same thing, meeting up with some hippie buds and taking off in a van with the warning that Victor better NOT tell on her for this. Hey, Victor's more than happy to oblige. What ten-year-old wouldn't love being left alone with a full frige, a small stack of spending money, and no rules or supervision whatsoever? Victor has the time of his young life. He eats what he wants, he does what he wants, and he stays up as late as he wants watching previously forbidden monster movies. It's this last liberty, the late bedtime, that sends young Victor's life into some veddy odd places. One night, past midnight, Victor is up watching the TV station sign off after the late-late-late show has concluded and right in front of his drowsy eyes he sees the most peculiar program he's ever witnessed: a jazz group composed entirely of man-sized lizards performs a concert in the minutes before the station ceases its signal. That's not to say it's a cartoon or guys in costumes...these appear to be great big lizards playing jazz. The next morning Victor wonders if it was all a dream. (He had after all been hitting the candy and cola a little hard the last couple nights...) To get to the truth, Victor stays up another night to see if it happens again. It does...and something else does too. Let me just say Victor takes a trip that's even weirder than the one his sister is on with her fellow hippies. "LiKe FaaR OuT, dUdE!!!" Lizard Music is the sort of book no one but Pinkwater could have written, no one could possibly figure out before its conclusion, and that no one will quite know what to make of when they've finished reading its mind-altering text.

Editorial Review:

When left to take care of himself, a young boy becomes involved with a community of intelligent lizards who tell him of a little known invasion from outer space.

Fat Men From Space

Daniel Manus Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A very silly outer space invasion 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I've been a reader of Daniel Pinkwater's books since grade school, and even enjoy reading them today. Along with `The Magic Moscow', this particular tale is one of the most memorable for me. Like just about all of the author's kiddie tomes, `Fat Men From Space' has no shortage of strange & bizarre yet lighthearted and gently humorous characters & situations.

What makes this particular story interesting is that there's no actual hero or heroes who save the day in the end. The main character, a boy whose new tooth filling picks up the aliens' radio transmissions, is merely a helpless witness to all of the unfortunate (yet strangely silly) goings-on. Fortunately, outside events play a part in the rotund ETs prematurely concluding their invasion, and the story ends on an upbeat & slightly sappy note.

Unfortunately, some folks might nowadays see this book's titular antagonists as being somewhat un-PC. You know, that whole `FAT Men..." thing and such. Well, all I can say about it is this: if you've ever seen a picture of the author, you might be a little less squeamish about his use of the word "fat", `cause he's a fairly hefty guy himself. The way I see it: if he can deal with it, so can the reader.

One more thing: `Fat Men From Space' is followed up by `Slaves of Spiegel', which I also recommend you take a look at. It too has plenty of the Pinkwater trademarks of silly situations and lighthearted & whimsical humor.

`Late

Editorial Review:

"While William is held captive in a spaceship, alien armies land and wipe out the earth's supply of junk foods. The boy escapes and humans learn to like what the departing scavengers have left: wholegrain bread, milk, greens, all the healthful foods. A wildly comic fantasy with a solid moral."--Publishers Weekly.

Young Larry

Daniel Manus Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Phrases from this book have entered our lexicon 4 out of 5 stars.
21 of 21 people found this review helpful.

Daniel Pinkwater writes charming and understated books for children,and somehow manages to portray the the fantasies realistically as a result. He admits to children the scary aspects of polar bears- they eat stinky food, they're really big, their mothers (and fathers) treat the cubs harshly, but Larry ends up as a likable character anyway. Anyone who asks his brother "so, do you think we can fend?" has a pretty good sense of himself. When Larry arrives in New Jersey (!) he quickly learns from "A Human" what it takes to get what he wants in this new and exciting culture. He settles down to do what needs to be done- earn money to buy muffins. No one seems to think twice about his outer bearsona for some time. Somehow, Daniel Pinkwater pulls that off, and my daughters have never questioned it.

This wasn't the first "Larry" book we owned, but I think it is the most charming of them. They all do have their charms and phrases that stay with you, and my daughters like them all. This would be a good gift for a book loving child because they are not too likely to already own it; it isn't one of the books you can find everywhere, but it's worth looking for.

Editorial Review:

Young Larry is a Marshall Cavendish publication.

The Lunchroom of Doom : Ready-for-Chapters #2

Daniel Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Werewolf Club is Back! 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Poor Billy Furball, he's been thrown out of the school lunchroom for having a food fight with himself. It was so bad, they had to bring in special cleaning equipment. And on top of that, because of his behavior, Billy has to see the school psychiatrist, who has informed him that there is no such thing as werewolves...it's just a game that got out of hand. Now, to support and cheer up their fellow werewolf, the rest of the club has decided not to eat in the lunchroom either. First, they tried to eat outside, but it rained. Next they tried to each in their club sponsor's car, but it was too full of shedded werewolf hair. So, finally they went down the block to eat at Honest Tom's Tibetan-American Lunchroom. The food wasn't bad and they got to meet Captain Sterling of the North American Space Squad. He has been abducted by aliens more than 400 times. Now as the club lunches each day at Honest Tom's, strange things begin to happen...This is the second book in Daniel Pinkwater's Werewolf series, and just like the first, it is full of wacky characters and laugh out loud scenes. The easy to read short chapters and hip, kid-speak language will keep your youngsters hooked and turning pages to the very end. This is a silly, funny, very absurd story that is just perfect for 7-10 year olds.

Editorial Review:

Where is one place you don't want to go alone?

Remember Werewolf Club members Ralf Alfa, Billy Furball, Lucy Fang, and Norman Gnormal? Well, they are back.

Now they wreak havoc on a local restaurant they call "The Lunchroom of Doom." Tomato catsup squirts. Paper straws fly. Laughts and weird things abund. Don't miss this gripping story of the supernatural.

Looking for Bobowicz: A Hoboken Chicken Story

Daniel Pinkwater

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Do you feel like chicken tonight? 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

There is much to be said in praise of any book that revolves around a giant rampaging chicken. It's one of those images that sticks so nicely in the brain. In the case of "Looking For Bobowicz", this is just the latest in author Daniel Pinkwater's poultry chronicles (the first being, "The Hoboken Chicken Emergency", of course). In this tale you may meet delightfully eccentric adults, sane reasonable children, a mysterious phantom, and the memory of a chicken who rocked a town with its flutter.

To his chagrin, Nick (real name Ivan Itch) has moved from comfortable Happy Valley to uncomfortable urban Hoboken, New Jersey. Nick is not pleased with the move (his mother didn't want him growing up with bad suburban influences) but quickly finds some like-minded pals living next door to his new home. He also gets his bike stolen by a mysterious phantom. Before he knows it, he and his friends Loretta and Bruno are rushing to the library to solve the mystery of the phantom and to get back what once was theirs.

In a lot of ways, this book definitely harkens back to Avi's, "No More Magic". Same reading level. Same mysterious being stealing the main character's bike right at the start of the story. Same otherworldly feel to the tale and peculiar kids banding together to solve the crime. And like Avi's book there's a slightly disjointed feel to the narrative. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book, though. I mean, a book has won my instant admiration if it contains, at some point, a father telling his son (who is going to try to capture a bat), "if you should get bitten, tell me at once so I can arrange for the series of painful shots". And there was much to enjoy in the tale as well. What kid can't relate to the wonders of exploring a basement full to brimming with mysterious junk? Or reading comic books (of literary classics, no less) while munching on sandwiches and Dreamsicles? Or following a series of clues to a mysterious cave deep below the earth?

There were definitely some odd choices in the story though. The mom of Nick often remarks on the wonderful influences of the big city on kids, which I assumed was a play on those mothers who think that way about the suburbs. The book doesn't dwell much on details and has some of the shortest chapters I've ever encountered. Also, adults' actions are left somewhat mysterious without reason. And there are some definite inconsistencies between the text and the pictures drawn by Jill Pinkwater. Little niggling things like the books saying the chicken was riding on a tricycle when it is CLEARLY riding a two-wheeled bike. But these are tiny matters. In the end the real question is whether or not this book successfully enthralls. And the answer is yes. Yes indeed it does.

So if you are looking for a work of fiction that is a little older reading than your average "Cam Jansen", but you don't want to hand your children something as complex and high-handed as "His Dark Materials", "Looking For Bobowicz" is an excellent alternative. For any kid that loves his or her average chicken mystery, this one takes the cake. It's sly, inventive, and cocky. Ha ha.

Editorial Review:

LOOKING FOR BOBOWICZ

Daniel Pinkwater

Nick Itch isn't thrilled about having to move from the suburbs to hot, muggy Hoboken.

But when he meets Bruno Ugg and Loretta Fischetti, the three become fast friends, bonding over Classics Comics, pirate radio, and a plan to find the legendary Arthur Bobowicz and his 266–pound chicken, Henrietta.

Ages 8+