Once again, a huge hit with my son! | 5 Novels: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars; Slaves of Spiegel; The...

The master of bizarre young adult novels! | 5 Novels: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars; Slaves of Spiegel; The Last Guru; Young Adult Novel; The ... | Daniel Pinkwater

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	• 5 Novels: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars; Slaves of Spiegel; The Last Guru; Young Adult Novel; The ... Daniel Pinkwater Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1997 - 656 pages average customer review:based on 62 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Dr. Seuss, Without the Pictures

I've been looking for Pinkwater's ALAN MENDELSOHN read for some time, and finally came across it here. It's been YEARS since I last read this, but being a YA writer, I've a son whom I write for. I want him to enjoy the reads I did when I was his age. This is one of them.

I don't remember much about this book (I'll post a review of this more adequately when I do), but one thing I recall: Pinkwater's ability to make the nonsensical make sense, like Dr. Seuss without pictures or rhyme. It's the magic in his imagination that moved the cadence through his words. The beauty of those words made the illogical logical, the impossible possible and the unlikely, likely. He put into words what you can't do with your dreams; while you're dreaming them, they make sense.

Books today sure aren't written in this fashion. Death by avocado? Genius! Shooting your eye out via a ricocheting bobby pin? It can happen. Maiming by a rogue Popsicle? Sure, why not? Pinkwater makes having an imagination and dreams deeply embedded in said imagination justified and worth paying attention to.

Be it MENDELSOHN or GREEN EGGS & HAm, both men and their imaginations on 'roids are timeless.

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Once again, a huge hit with my son!

Pinkwater does it again. My son declared THIS book the greatest book ever written. He carried it around in the car, read it during dinner, he absolutely loves it. Thank you, Daniel Pinkwater!

The master of bizarre young adult novels!

To this day, I can not fathom the popularity of Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia. Many might try to blame this on my age, or a lack of love for fantasy or adventure. The truth, however, is because I grew up reading books by authors like Daniel Pinkwater, and have since then passed up the painfully melodramatic in preference of the touchingly absurd.

This collection of young adult fiction by Daniel Pinkwater offers a generous sampling of the author's favorite subject matters. Aliens, misfits, weird people, rebellious students, and fat men all have places of honor among these tales.

In Alan Mendelsohn, Boy from Mars, Leonard Neeble is such an outcast at school that even the nerds make fun of him. Just when he's given up hope on ever being happy, along comes Alan Mendelsohn, a new kid who seems to enjoy annoying teachers and blowing off the cool kids. Leonard and Alan become quick friends, and in no time at all Alan is showing Leonard how to skip school, smoke cigars, lift objects with his mind, contact alien races, and learn to enjoy who he is without the approval of others.

Slaves of Spiegel, simply put, is about a race of fat people that forces other races into a cooking contest, while The Snarkout Boys are a group of young lads who "snark out" at night and have many bizarre adventures. The Last Guru, is about, well, the last guru. Go figure.

My personal favorite, however, and the grand example of Daniel Pinkwater's bizarre brand of genius, is Young Adult Novel. The story revolves around Wild Dada Ducks, a self-proclaimed dadaist group consisting of Charles the Cat, the Honorable Venustiano Carranza (President of Mexico), The Indiana Zephyr, Captain Colossal, and Igor. They spend their time performing dadaist plays and acts of pointless revolution at their high school, and writing parody young adult novels featuring the fictional character Kevin Shapiro. But when they discover that there actually is a student in the school named Kevin Shapiro, they immediately take him under their wing despite his protests, ignorant to the possibility that their own creation might rebel against them. After all, that is dada.

Very few children's authors, past or present, can successfully inject this much original wackiness into their stories while simultaneously teaching much needed life lessons that many books never touch on. Granted, not all of his young adult novels are meant to inform, but even the ones meant purely for entertainment can't help but leave you feeling better for the experience. Children, young adults, and even some grownups could do with a little Pinkwater influence.

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A smart writer for smart children

If you haven't read Pinkwater before, this is a good place to start. If you are familiar with his work then rejoice for here are five books in one. And not just any five books... oh no. This collection contains not only Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars and Young Adult Novel but the first and best of the Snarkout Boy books. Buy it, read it, and know that you and your children will never be the same.

Hilarious Writing at it's Max!

Young Adult Novel by Daniel Pinkwater is an amazingly witty story about five young dadaists, who are attempting to revolutionize the dull, strict, hyper-ordinary Himmler High School. One day, the main character (Kevin Shapiro) from a story they were writing is discovered to have the same name as a kid in their school. And that's when things really start to change at Himmler. One page of this hilarious short novel will make you want to finish the whole story. This book is for older children, but anyone will get a kick out of Pinkwater's ingenuous writing style!

by Clark

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