About Daniel Pinkwater
Daniel Manus Pinkwater (born November 15, 1941) is an American author of children's books and young adult fiction. His books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange Splot. Pinkwater has also written an adult novel, The Afterlife Diet (1995), and essay collections derived from his talks on National Public Radio. Many elements of his fiction are based on real events and people that Pinkwater encountered in his youth. == Early life, family and education == Manus Pinkwater was born on November 15, 1941, in Memphis, Tennessee, to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. He describes his father, Philip, as a "ham-eating, iconoclastic Jew" and "gangster" who was expelled from Warsaw by the decent Jews. Pinkwater and his family moved to Chicago, where he was raised. Pinkwater attended the Black-Foxe Military Institute in Hollywood, where he befriended Errol Flynn's son Sean, and wound up in high school back in Chicago. After graduating, Pinkwater attended Bard College, in New York State. An art major, he found the experience of studying art in a college unsatisfactory, and served an apprenticeship with sculptor David Nyvall in Chicago.
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