"Mick is a good kid, but maybe he can use just a little guidance. But it's unclear who will be guiding whom, because Mick's brother came home from Tibet with the self-proclaimed Guru Lumpo Smythe-Finkel and his dog Lhasa—and then promptly settled both of them in Mick's bedroom.
The thing about this kind of guru is that he doesn't seem to know exactly what he's trying to do. He sure does seem to be hungry, though.
So Mick agrees to something like a quest, roaming the suburbs with the oddest group of misfits: Lumpo and Lhasa; graffiti-fanatic Verne; and Verne's unusual friend Molly. Molly is a Dwergish girl—don't worry if you don't know what that is yet—and she seems to be going off the rails a bit.
Along the way, the gang will get invited to a rollicking ghost party, consult a very strange little king, and actually discover the truth about Heaven. Or a version of the truth anyway, because in a Daniel Pinkwater tale, the truth is never the slightest bit like what you're expecting."
"Bestselling author Daniel Pinkwater (The Hoboken Chicken Emergency) returns in classic form with the middle-grade adventures of one young Molly O'Malley: a dwarf (well, dwarf-ish) girl who just won't settle for a boring life in the Catskills.
Molly O'Malley is a clever, adventurous girl. She is also a Dwerg. Dwergs are strange folks who live very quietly in the Catskill mountains, have lots of gold, and are kind of like dwarves (but also not!).
Molly isn't interested in cooking and weaving, as she is expected to be. So, she sets off to see the world for herself. Which means a new job, a trip to New York City, prowling gangsters, an adorable king, a city witch, and many historical ghosts. More importantly, it means excellent pizza, new friends, and very quick thinking.
Now someone is pursuing the Dwergs for their gold. Can Molly O'Malley save the day?"
"The Snarkout Boys are back with a wackier-than-ever tale! This time there' s a monster on the loose in Baconburg, and the teens are caught in the middle of all the happenings— from the silly to the sillier.
High school sophomores Waiter Gait, Winston Bongo, and Rat Matthews take time off from their nightly 'snarking' (secret moviegoing) to stop in at the beatnik-style Dharma Buns Coffee House— where there's a werewolf scare in the kitchen. Is there indeed a werewolf on the prowl— or just a pseudo-werewolf— or what?"
"Combine a crime, a criminal, a fat man in a fez, and a guy named 'Chicken Man,' and you get a zany sci-fi adventure that defies gravity. As Wizard of Comedy Daniel M. Pinkwater transports the Snarkout Boys and the Rat through the tunnel under North Aufzoo Street to the warmth of Beanbenders, you'll meet some strange characters and learn much about the versatile avocado. The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death is a sci-fi mystery adventure that seems like a dream— but no one is sleeping!"
"As millions of radio listeners already know, no one has had a life quite like storyteller Daniel Pinkwater. In this comical collection of memories, Pinkwater tells of how he grew into the beloved figure he is today: a robust genius of the printed page and rotund genie of the radio. He shares a conversation with his father about art school that changed the course of his career, describes his inauguration as a sculptor in a sleazy Chicago art factory, and recounts setting off for a bright center of the American art scene— or at least as close as Hoboken, New Jersey. Finally, we hear as Pinkwater pictures his first true audience, children. Chicago Days / Hoboken Nights is a memoir about how a visual artist turned to writing, only to be hailed as a 'comic master' by the Washington Post Book World."
