Daniel Pinkwater – författare

Four-fantastic-books-in-one by the popular author of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency: Borgel Yobgorgle The Worms of Kukumlima The Snarkout Boys & the Baconburg Horror

Where is one place you don't want to go alone? Remember Werewolf Club members Ralf Alfa, Billy Furball, Lucy Fang, and Norman Gnormal? Well, they are back. Now they wreak havoc on a local restaurant they call "The Lunchroom of Doom." Tomato catsup squirts. Paper straws fly. Laughts and weird things abund. Don't miss this gripping story of the supernatural.

Just when you thought it was safe... Here comes Dorkula. Who is he and what does he want? Is this the vampire of ancient legend and bad late-night movies? Being in the Werewolf Club has never been so much fun! Just ask Ralf Alfa, Billy Furball, Lucy Fang, and Norman Gnormal. Follow their funny exploits as they wend their way through this spine-tingling tale of werewolves, vampires, and inspired lunacy.

What's small and round and smells like knackwurst, and is very, very scary? The Werewolf Club is about to find out! After a stop at the Local Yokel Diner to eat jitterbugs (you don't want to know), the young werewolves are off to Basketball Hall, the ancestral home of their teacher Mr. Talbot's uncle, Hugo Basketball. Generations of Basketballs have been cursed by their servants, the peculiar Barrymores, (it's so hard to get good help) not to mention by monstrous Hound of the Basketballs. Who better to vanquish the frightful hound, Hugo figures, than a pack of werewolves? So with the moon full (and their belies full of knackwurst and sauerkraut) our intrepid heroes are once again risking their young lives to rid the world of evil. But what about the haunted pastrami?

Would you buy a used time machine from this man? Mr. Talbot has taken the Werewolf Club to London! Unfortunately, they made the trip in Uncle H. G. Talbot's unreliable time-and-space machine, and they've arrived in 1890 London -- where it might be a tad difficult to buy the 212 double-A batteries they need for the machine to get them home. The Werewolf Club's goose is cooked -- and not for a good old-fashioned English Christmas dinner. While they're figuring out what to do, the young werewolves have plenty of time to take in some sights usually missed by your average tour bus, and even help legendary detective Sherlock Holmes thwart the notorious Jack the Schlepper's attempt to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London. There will always be an England -- but never one like the Werewolf Club's England.

Now that Mush -- the talking, cooking, educated dog from space -- is part of the Mangiaro household, Kelly wants to know more about the planet Growf-Woof-Woof, and how her dog came to Earth. When the two of them go on a picnic, (which Kelly prepares carefully under Mush's supervision), Kelly asks Mush about her past. "Well, it's such a long story," says Mush...and soon, Kelly is hearing about Mush's old jazz band, The Hot Animals, and how they dealt with robbers who threatened to knock over their boss's jive joint!

LASSIE, GO HOME -- MUSH IS HERE! Now that Kelly Mangiaro's family has moved out of their apartment into a house, she figures her parents will finally let her get a dog. Instead, her mother gets a job, and Kelly gets a baby-sitter. Then Kelly comes upon Mush, a mushamute -- a breed not recognized by the Westminster Kennel Club, or by anyone else for that matter, possibly because mushamutes come from the planet Growf-Woof-Woof, in the solar system of Arfturus. Mushamutes can talk, tell time, cook up a storm, and even clean up the kitchen afterwards. Who needs a baby-sitter when there's a mushamute around? Now if only Kelly can persuade her parents to let her keep Mush....

There have been books about dogs since books began -- manuals on training and raising them, stories featuring dogs, and memoirs seen through the eyes of dogs. Lately, there has been a rash of books that purport to tell us what dogs are thinking, such as the bestselling What Dogs Are Thinking.This is a book about a Jewish boy and his sled dogs -- also a couple of wolves, a parrot or two...and Pinkwater's uncle...and his father. Daniel Pinkwater, prodigious author of books for children, popular commentator on National Public Radio, and dog trainer to the stars, is unclear about what dogs are thinking. In fact, he appears to be completely baffled by them. He considers himself lucky that his dog does not foul the carpet, bite people, or run in traffic. Unlike every other dog book ever written, this one does not make the reader feel more stupid than the author.