Daniel Manus Pinkwater (born November 15, 1941) is an American author of children's books and young adult fiction.

He attended the Black-Foxe Military Institute in Hollywood, where he befriended Errol Flynn's son Sean,[1] and wound up in high school back in Chicago.

Pinkwater rode in a Volkswagen convertible to a photo shoot with Gilliam, Robert Crumb, and Help's creator Harvey Kurtzman—none of the men had any interest in the others.

[1] With his wife Jill, Pinkwater published a dog training book and ran an obedience school while living in Hoboken, New Jersey.

[1] Pinkwater tends to write about social misfits who find themselves in bizarre situations, such as searching for a floating island populated by human-sized intelligent lizards (Lizard Music), exploring other universes with an obscure relative (Borgel), or discovering that their teeth can function as interstellar radio antennae (Fat Men from Space).

Another common theme is Jewish culture, with character names referencing Yiddish phrases (for example, Shane Ferguson from Lizard Music is named after the phrase shoyn fergessen) or the characters themselves incongruously speaking in Yiddish-influenced dialogue or participating in Borscht Belt culture.

In 1995, Pinkwater published his first adult novel, The Afterlife Diet, in which a mediocre editor, upon dying, finds himself in a tacky Catskills resort populated by "circumferentially challenged" deceased.

Pinkwater was also known to avid fans of the NPR radio show Car Talk, where he has appeared as a (seemingly) random caller, commenting, for example, on the physics of the buttocks (giving rise to the proposed unit of measure of seat size: the Pinkwater), and giving practical advice as to the choice of automobiles.

[4] In April 2012, a story attributed to Daniel Pinkwater, "The Hare and the Pineapple", was used on a standardized exam for 8th grade students in New York.

[9] City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott issued a statement saying improvements on the state exam will be made in the future.