World-famous French writer Daniel Pennack was born in 1944. His birthplace is Casablanca (Morocco). Daniel's father was a military engineer, so the family had to travel a lot and live in more than one military garrison.
Most of his school years, the future writer did not shine with academic performance. The family even had a joke that Daniel Pennak would spend at least a year memorizing the letter “a”. The father often repeated that at about twenty-six years old the son would master the alphabet perfectly. Only closer to graduation he managed to recover. Woodcarver, taxi driver, illustrator - these professions he mastered, leaving the school walls. After graduating from Daniel Pennak began to teach. His more than twenty-five-year career has been associated with teaching at a school for children with developmental delays.
The beginning of a literary career
The beginning of his literary career was by no means cloudless: the editors did not seek to accept the works of the author. Until one of the well-known editors returned the work with reasoned analysis and parting words in the further improvement of the obvious literary gift. For his first essay publication, Daniel Pennak chose a pseudonym so as not to adversely affect his father's military career.
The world fame came to the writer after the publication of a series of detective novels "The Saga of Malossen", he is famous as the author of children's books. The directors draw inspiration from his works, and an essay written by him entitled “Like a novel” (Daniel Pennak often repeats quotes from it) radically changed the teachers’s approaches to encouraging children to read and arouse their love of books. By the way, he calls himself a "passionate reader." The writer’s third novel, The Little Merchant of Prose, managed to take first place in France and throughout Western Europe in readability for two years.
Daniel Pennak: Books for Kids
The author began working on his “childhood” stories in 1978-1980. It was a period of residence in Brazil. Readers are well acquainted with such novels as The Dog of the Dog, written in 1982, The Eye of the Wolf (year of creation - 1984), The Adventures of Kamo (written in 1992).
These are books on the pages of which you can find out what real friendship is, see how French teenagers live, like any other teenagers in the world, who need understanding, love and support from adults and parents.
The works of D. Pennak are distinguished by liveliness and spontaneity, a slightly noticeable sadness and a very clear call to life. They do not repel hopelessness and anguish, do not inflict wounds on children's hearts, but rather give them notes of joy.
Literary Awards
The works of Daniel Pennak can be read in twenty-six languages of the world, their best rating is literary prizes, which marked the writer's work in various countries. Among them: the International Grinzane-Cavour Prize (2002), the Renodo Literary Prize (2007). The Cesar Prize was awarded in March 2013, a cartoon based on the script of D. Pennak.