Biography EssayCritics of adolescent literature generally cite four novels of the late 1960s as helping this subgenre break its ties with its past formulaic romanticism and move dramatically into a mu...
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From Pulitzer prize-winning playwright to young adult fiction writer, American author Paul Zindel (born 1936) turned his real-life turbulent teens into fictional stories to show teenagers that their l...
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Considered a groundbreaking author of young adult literature as well as one of its most controversial contributors, Paul Zindel is well known as the creator of realistic novels that depict the teenage...
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May 15, 1936. Born in Staten Island, New York. Coming from a broken home, Zindel never knew his father very well. "Mother was a girl in her twenties when my father left. She used to have to fight to g...
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A playwright who draws heavily on his personal experiences for the material of his plays, Paul Zindel is best known for his largely autobiographical award-winner, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-th...
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Critics of adolescent literature generally cite three late-1960s novels as helping this subgenre break its ties with its past romanticism and move dramatically into a much more realistic mode: The Out...
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Here, in the course of arguing that drama is a form of expression inherent in humankind, Zindel recollects events in his own life that demonstrate an innate affinity for the theater.
I am told I am bo...
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Clurman was a highly-regarded American director, educator, author, and drama critic for The Nation from 1953 to 1980. His writings include the acclaimed book of reminiscences All People Are Famous (In...
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A Yugoslavian-born American film and drama critic, Simon has been both praised as a judicious reviewer and censured as a petty faultfinder. He believes that criticism should be subjective, and as Andr...
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Since 1977, Rich has been the chief cinema and television critic for Time magazine. He is also a contributor to Ms., the New York Times, and Esquire. In the following review of the 1989 Circle Reperto...
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Here, Barnes discusses the various themes in Amulets Against the Dragon Forces.
Paul Zindel is one of those unfortunate playwrights best-known for his first play—The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man...
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In the following review, Winer compares Zindel's depiction of Chris Boyd in Amulets Against the Dragon Forces to J. D. Salinger's portrait of Holden Coalfield in The Catcher in the Rye.
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Here, Simon approves of the production of Amulets against the Dragon Forces, praising Zindel's use of dialogue.
Paul Zindel's Amulets Against the Dragon Forces is not up to the author&#x...
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In the following excerpt, Raymond examines Zindel's life and literary career and highlights the autobiographical details in Amulets against the Dragon Forces.
"I was really born to be a ...
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Janeczko is an American educator and editor of works for young adults. Below, Zindel discusses with Janeczko his development as an author and offers advice to new writers.
[Janeczko]: What is the diff...
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In the following excerpt, Forman comments on the auto-biographical elements and depiction of women in Zindel's plays, often comparing the characterizations in his dramas to those in his young a...
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An English-born American drama and dance critic whose commentary has appeared regularly in New York Times and New York Post, Barnes has been called "the first, second and third most powerful cr...
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Critical Essay by Beverly A. Haley and Kenneth L. Donelson
[Paul Zindel] speaks to young people about man's cruelty and "matters of consequence" in three novels. [The Pigman, My D...
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Critical Essay by Isabel Quigly
Paul Zindel's people seem to take over his book entirely and live so vividly you forget there's a narrator at all. [J. D.] Salinger managed the same effec...
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Critical Essay by Zena Sutherland
[In Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball! two] members of a high school therapy group run by the school psychologist grope toward real friendship and under...
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Critical Essay by Isabel Quigly
Like the other heroes of Paul Zindel's books [Chris Boyd, hero of Confessions of a Teenage Baboon], can explain, in language that comes convincingly from a sixte...
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Critical Essay by Stanley Hoffman
Approaching a new Paul Zindel novel is something of an adventure…. The reason is that, unless he changes radically as a writer of "young adult novels&#x...
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Critical Essay by Joyce Milton
Paul Zindel has been a trendsetter in young-adult fiction since 1968. Significantly, his latest book ["The Undertaker's Gone Bananas"] features a te...
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Critical Essay by Maxine Fisher
[Paul] Zindel is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award; The New York Times has included four of his books in recent lists...
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Critical Essay by Jack Forman
Whatever one expects of a novel by Paul Zindel, [A Star for the Latecomer] is not it. (It is co-authored by his wife.) There are no drunk mothers, wayward fathers, and &#...
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Critical Essay by Cyrisse Jaffee
Death is not an easy subject to deal with in children's books. Attempts to reassure young people too often create saccharine prose; attempts to confront the iss...
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Critical Essay by Judith N. Mitchell
[In The Girl Who Wanted a Boy] Sibella Cametta, 15 year old clod and scientific whiz, learns that it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all...
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Critical Essay by Margery Fisher
There is, I am sure, much good sense and sound advice for adolescents in The Girl who wanted a Boy. The trouble is that to find these desirable qualities you have to h...
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Critical Essay by A. Thatcher
[The Girl Who Wanted a Boy, written] by an author who certainly understands American teenagers, is a brilliantly and sensitively written story of Sibella's search ...
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Critical Essay by Marilyn R. Singer
[My Darling, My Hamburger is a] skillfully written story of four high school seniors … that has tremendous appeal on the entertainment level, but that totall...
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Critical Essay by Diane Gersoni-edelman
[In his My Darling, My Hamburger], Zindel copped out on his likable, interest-sustaining characters by resolving their problems in a pat, moralizing manner. The...
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Critical Essay by The Times Literary Supplement
[Paul Zindel's] problem as a writer is what to do when you are writing about [the non-conforming young in America] as an outsider to their curren...
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Critical Essay by Zena Sutherland
[Let Me Hear You Whisper is a touching and trenchant two-act play. It] reads beautifully, with good dialogue and characterization, an original plot, and a theme that ...
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Paul Zindel
Paul Zindel
Paul Zindel
