PINKWATER, Daniel M(anus)

(1941-)

   US writer whose many novels for children have attracted large adult audiences for their surreal wit, their supple and astringent wisdom and (for sf readers in particular) the wry hilarity of their use of sf venues and themes. After several non-genre works as Manus Pinkwater (a form of his name which appears only in books of the 1970s), DMP began writing tales of genre interest with Wizard Crystal (1973) and Magic Camera (1974), attracting considerable attention with Lizard Music (1976),an sf fantasia in which a young boy begins seeing musical lizards everywhere, finds they are real and in secret occupancy of a nearby invisible island, and later discovers that they have allied themselves with the "right" sort of humans to oppose pod-people from space. Many of DMP's books are either explicitly constructed as series - like the MagicMoscow sequence and the Snarkout Boys sequence - or share venues and characters with one another. In the end, no DMP book stands alone: all occupy, in one way or another, a region whose children tend to be lonely but clear-sighted and whose adults are either blind (or astonishingly open) to the crowded marvellousness of the Universe. Some of the more outstanding singletons for older children are Wingman (1975) as Manus Pinkwater, Fat Men from Space (1976) as Daniel Manus Pinkwater, AlanMendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (1979), Yobgorgle: Mysterious Monster of Lake Ontario (1979), Java Jack (1980) with Luqman Keele, The Worms of Kukumlima (1981) and Borgel (1990). The books for younger children, heavily illustrated and written in a bumptious though easy-to-follow style, are almost as intriguing.

   JC

   Other works (mostly for younger readers): The Moose sf trilogy featuring a time-travelling moose vampire and comprising Blue Moose 1975 chap) as Manus Pinkwater, The Return of the Moose (1979 chap) and The Moosepire (1986 chap); The Big Orange Splot(1977 chap); The Blue Thing (1977 chap); Pickle Creature (1979 chap); the Magic Moscow sequence, comprising The Magic Moscow (1980 chap), Attila the Pun (1981 chap) and Slaves of Spiegel (1982 chap); Tooth-Gnasher Superflash (1981 chap); the Snarkout Boys sequence, comprising The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death (1982) and The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror (1984); Roger's Umbrella (1982 chap) as by Honest Dan'l Pinkwater; I Was a Second-Grade Werewolf (1983); Ducks! (1984 chap);Devil in the Drain (1984 chap); The Frankenbagel Monster (1986 chap); The Muffin Fiend (1986 chap); Guys from Space (1989 chap); Wempires (1991 chap).Nonfiction: Fish Whistle: Commentaries, Uncommentaries, and Vulgar Excesses (coll 1989); Chicago Days/Hoboken Nights (1991), a memoir.