Daniel Pinkwater has been writing books for 35 years: picture books, young adult novels, adult novels, essay collections, and dog training manuals. During that time, he’s also become a familiar voice on NPR. If you randomly select a nine-year-old from within your household, he will probably be familiar with Pinkwater’s work, if not his name. Try it. I did.

What do you think of when I say, “Pinkwater?”
I think of a big, bald man who writes silly books. He is a writer who writes short or long silly books.

Most people would think of pink lemonade.
Hmmph.

What’s your favorite book by Daniel Pinkwater?
The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. Stuff happened. It’s about two kids who sneak out during the night and watch movies at the Snark Theatre and they go on this adventure which involves them, like, going after the world’s most wanted criminal.

Have you read any other Pinkwater books?
Yes, lots of them, like the Werewolf Club, Young Larry, I was a Second Grade Werewolf and The Frankenbagel Monster. They’re silly and they have nice plots. I would recommend them for kids who like reading and like silly stories.

What do you think of his obsession with polar bears?
I think it’s kind of strange, but I like the books he writes about them.

Silly seems very important to you.
Yes, because, I don’t know, I just have a sense of humor probably. I like having one ’cause I can understand all their jokes now.

October, 2005

We here at the Family Valued silent wing, room with turning heads, and school for pellet regurgitation have randomly selected an eleven-year-old from among the one immediately available.

So, you’ve started a new book series?
Yes, I have: Guardians of Ga’Hoole, except I started with book four. The main characters in every book are the Chaws and their friends and their relatives. The Chaw of Chaws has Digger, Soren, Otulissa, Dewlap, maybe- wait, I’m not sure. And Gylfie. And Twilight.

Doesn’t starting later in the series cause confusion?
Not really, because it tells you a lot of stuff that happens in the last stories around the book. The book I started on was The Siege. One of the villains is Kludd, also known as Metal Beak. They’re owls.

Owls?
Yes, owls. All the main characters are owls. That’s the Chaw of Chaws, Kludd, and Nyra. Nyra is Kludd’s mate and Nyra is evil too. So, apparently Kludd was flying and his feathers were on fire and all and he flew into some water to cool him down because his mask (which is made out of metal which covers his eye, beak, and face feathers which are not there) is melting on him. So then this owl named Simon goes and sees him land there and he heals him. But then once Kludd is fully healed, he kills Simon and he flies off because he has plans to lay siege on the Great Ga’Hoole tree with an all barn owl army because the group led by Kludd and Nyra is called the Pure Ones. They basically think that one breed of owl is better than another and they think the barn owl is the top breed.

That sounds pretty exciting.
I don’t think it’s as exciting as Book 5 because there’s not just a siege in it, but they’re still about to have a big fight. Also Nyra laid an egg and the Chaw of Chaws are keeping it hostage so they can control the Pure Ones.

So you’d recommend these books?
Yes, to people who have read Watership Down or Warriors and liked either one of them.

February, 2007

We here at the Family Valued executive washroom, microwave kitchen, and unified pressroom have randomly selected a ten-year-old from among the one immediately available.

So, what have you been reading lately?
Thud!.

What is that?
It’s the latest book written by Terry Pratchett. It’s funny fantasy. He is a very good writer from Britain. The other ones I remember are Truckers, about these teeny little people who live inside this store. Wee Free Men is about a witch who realizes that there are little blue people that live in this hill and are a bit smaller.

He seems to have a thing about little people.
Yes, I’m not sure why.

Thud! seems like a very big book.
Yes, it’s the biggest book I’ve ever read by myself. I wanted to know what happened and things did happen and it was fun. The Discworld series has a very good creation myth- like some Godly figure made this turtle and its four elephant bothers and they jumped up on its back and its ectoplasm jumped up and formed the world. It was something like that. Every book he tells about different people. Thud! is about the Watch in Ankh-Morpork, a city in Discworld. They’re kind of police. Trolls don’t usually wear clothes. I guess clothes are not a troll-y thing. Death always appears in all of his books at least once. He has to in every book. He just does.

So you’re reading about death.
It isn’t exactly. He’s a character. Death said that Vimes (Commander of the Watch) was having a near-death experience and Death was having a near-Vimes experience.

Would you recommend the book?
Yes, I would. It has humor and adventure.

February, 2006