Adventures of a Dwergish Girl

I have been enjoying the books of Daniel Pinkwater for probably 35 years. I still remember my favorite book of his fondly: Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars. It was a book about an unpopular outcast and I felt very seen. I loved the fact that he got to find a friend and have adventures and smoke cigars and travel to another plane of reality. I enjoyed all of his books that I read, including Young Adult Novel and The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. Didn’t he have fantastic titles? And I’ll never forget listening to Car Talk with my dad and realizing that it was Daniel Pinkwater calling in. If memory serves, they decided to use a new method of measuring car seat size for ample rumps “the “Pinkwater”. Recently, I’ve been finding some of his books geared for younger kids for my own children. My eldest really enjoyed the Hoboken Chicken Emergency.

So I was very excited to get an eARC of Adventures of a Dwergish Girl from NetGalley. It envisions a community of Dwergs, people resembling fairy tale dwarves, living in update New York. But, like many a Pinkwater book, it doesn’t dawdle. It quickly sets our protagonist, a Dwerg who goes by Molly, off on a series of wacky adventures, which include the most loving description of a papaya-based New York hot dog eatery you have ever or will ever read. It really made me nostalgic for when I lived on the Upper East Side.

Like many Pinkwater books, this one is filled with zany characters that seem so unrealistic that you know they must be based on real people. Also, like many Pinkwater books, the plot zigs and zags with many unexpected turns that could easily give you whiplash, they are so abrupt.

Is this book perfect? No. But it captures that classic Pinkwater vibe. And that’s good enough for me!

This book will be published in September, 2020--I received a copy from NetGalley--and what I mostly have to say is: I HAVE READ THIS AND YOU HAVEN'T HAHAHAHA!

If you don't know Daniel Pinkwater, then nothing I can say will prepare you for his books. If you do know him, then I need say nothing. That being said, people would probably appreciate some context for the happy burbling in this review.

Indulge me for a paragraph while I go back a few decades. I encountered Pinkwater's Alan Mendohlson: The Boy from Mars and its frumpy, unpopular, misunderstood narrator Leonard Neeble a few years after its 1979 publication, when I was a frumpy, unpopular preteen girl convinced that nobody understood, and, naturally, imprinted hard on the book. Its out-of-left-field humor, thwarting of authority figures, windows into other, fantastical, worlds and the triumph and eventual self-possession of the narrator while not changing any of the traits I shared with him meant it was the right book the right time. (See #2 and #3 of S. R. Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science.) The two things I wished at the time that Alan Mendohlson had were: (1) more info about Alan Mendohlson and where he came from, and (2) a girl.

Enter Adventures of a Dwergish Girl. Molly O'Malley is a Dwerg, one of a reclusive race of people who live in the Catskill mountains. She's unsatisfied with her life and the expectations of her future, so decides to head out to The Big City and see what happens. What happens is that she encounters pizza, makes friends, discovers papaya juice, ghosts and historical re-enactors, and saves both the day and her people while being, emphatically, herself. Even when she's not sure what to do, she comes up with a plan.

Had I encountered Molly O'Malley at the same age I encountered Alan Mendohlson, I think I might have actually liked her better. It was terrific fun to watch Alan Mendohlson do amazing things, but it's better to be Molly O'Malley doing amazing things. We get to know where Molly comes from and who she is while at the same time having a view from the driver's seat. I admit that the questions that Alan Mendohlson left me with, and the particular weirdnesses of that book, made me love it and speculate long and hard on it (I was unaware of the concept of fanfic at the time, probably for the best as I would have been a terrible writer). But while AM was a sharp, hard, fizzy concoction, AoaDG is a more rounded dish with umami at the base and careful seasoning on top.

Adventures of a Dwergish Girl has a strong voice which, I admit, is Pinkwater's voice and much the same in all of his books but I never get tired of it.It's also packed full of Pinkwater's usual run of weird and quirky characters. The end teases a continuation of the story, and should that come to pass I would absolutely love it.

Highly recommended. I'm going to buy a hard copy when it's published so I can throw it at my nephew when he's old enough to appreciate it.

Daniel Pinkwater was an author of my childhood, and I loved his witty, playful books that embraced absurdities and creative problem-solving. It was a pleasure to return to his writing, and I loved Adventures of a Dwergish Girl. Molly is not human, but a Dwerg, belonging to the large but mostly unseen Dwergish community in the Catskills. Attracted to the human world and all of its facets, she decides to live for a bit in the nearest human town, where she discovers pizza, makes friends with humans and human ghosts, goes to New York City for papaya juice and to meet with a witch, and with the help of her friends--human, Dwerg, and ghost--saves the town. It's a fun romp of a novel that would be perfect for parents and kids reading out loud to each other. Have some papaya juice an da pizza or hot dog along with it, and you've got a great book party.

Wow, such a good story. This sci-fi and fantasy book from Daniel Pinkwater was the first book I have read from this author. I have been wanting to read his work in so long, and now that I did I'm so impressed. Thanks to Netgalley I received this ARC of this book.

This story follows a Dwergish girl that goes by the name Molly. She is confident, smart and very independent. She decides to move out of her hidden town that only Dwergish can find. She ends up working for a pizzeria and living behind it. Here Molly meets Leni, a girl from the school she was attending. Leni knows her way around New York and even caves. Molly's simple life becomes complicated after finding out that some might be coming after the Dwergish coins of gold worth so much. Molly meets various characters as she embarks on the adventure to save Kingstown from a possible torching.

This is a great read and an easy read. I enjoyed every moment of it. If you like The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman you will love this book as well. I highly recommend this book. #AdventuresofaDwergishGirl #NetGalley

I just knew I was going to love this book as soon as I read the blurb. It sounded like such fun. It was. I thought it was going to be aimed at a younger audience, maybe middle grade but I think it would suit a slightly higher age-group. I loved this book. I had a lot of fun reading it. The history of Molly and Dwergs was a lot of fun and very entertaining. Molly is a great character, well fleshed out and I liked how she develops across the book. I thought this was a great book. I need to read more of this author’s work.

Daniel Pinkwater is at his best, most charming and delightful in this tale of a girl from the Dwerg people – you know, the “little men” responsible for Rip Van Winkle sleeping for twenty years? The ones you can never find, no matter how hard you look? The ones who mine gold in the Catskills, can run unbelievably fast, practice domesticity on a level capable of boring any young person to tears? Such is Molly Van Dwerg’s world until she decides to leave home, armed with a couple of Dwergish gold coins and irrepressible self-confidence. Her gift for making friends is rivaled only by her appetite for pizza and papaya juice. When the nearby town of Kingston is menaced by bad guys after the gold and willing to burn down the town to get it, Molly enlists her friends and her wits to save the day.

Charming reading for the entire family.

Molly is a Dwerg whose people live magically hidden in the Catskills, tending goats and mining gold. Dwergish girls sometimes go into the nearby town to go to school and Molly has seen enough of the outside world to know she wants to see more and that a life of weaving, cooking and tending goats doesn’t really interest her. So Molly goes in to Kingston, gets a job at a pizzeria and starts to make friends with the residents of Kingston; both the living and the dead. When Redcoats, not actually living or ghosts, are seen to around town committing crimes, Molly finds out that it is part of a larger plot to find the Dwerg’s gold. Can Molly stop them and still keep the Dwerg’s existence secret?

Aimed at middle school readers this is a delightful story that will please both the young and adult reader. I look forward to more of Molly’s adventures.

13 year old daughter read this for me and enjoyed it. Funny book with a touch of adventure. Lessons in friendship and not being afraid of learning new things.

STORYLINE: A wonderful blend of folklore, magic, and history – early American history, that is. Envision the dwarfs that lived with Snow White. The character of this book are like these legendary dwarfs and they live in a mostly invisible village. One day, a young girl, named Molly, a Dwerg (that is what these little people are called) decides there is more to life than living in this village. She tells her family this; they wish her well; and she takes off on adventures into the big outside world. She lands in Kingston, New York.
TEXT: Take a bit of magic, pizza, hotdogs, and papaya juice. Mix this with ordinary people, ghosts, dead and alive British soldiers and gangsters, a radio DJ, the witch of the Catskill Mountain, the bee waggle and a cave, and you have an adventuresome mystery of a book!
ILLUSTRATIONS: Black and white illustrations to begin each short chapter peak interest.
PROS:
*The book lends itself to a geography lesson of this Catskill Mountain region
*The book references American history and folklore of the region
CONS: Story ends and readers want more. A book #2 would be nice!
HOW BEST ENJOYED: This would be a great read-aloud for third and fourth graders. Stoytimes of this nature stick in the memories of children when they grow up.
IN CLOSING: Have you ever thought about your destiny? Molly learns her destiny in this story!

My ten year old and I both read and enjoyed this book. We loved the unique main character and the compelling storyline. This book was like curling up with a cup of hot cocoa on a cold day. Highly recommend!