The Education of Robert Nifkin [Paperback]

The Education of Robert Nifkin is the education of a beatnik. Set in 1950s Chicago and conveyed in the form of a college essay, Robert Nifkin details his journey from a mind-numbing high school that smells to the curriculum-free carnival of a private school ruled by bohemians, beatniks, and freaks.

The Education of Robert Nifkin is the education of a beatnik. Set in 1950s Chicago and conveyed in the form of a college essay, Robert Nifkin details his journey from a mind-numbing high school that smells to the curriculum-free carnival of a private school ruled by bohemians, beatniks, and freaks.

Pinkwater fans should appreciate the anarchy as well as the irreverent descriptions of high school life. School Library Journal

Falling somewhere between Candide and Holden Caulfield, Robert is an inexperienced but savvy teen, with [a] capacity for sardonic observations that will have readers rocking with laughter. Kirkus Reviews

Daniel Pinkwater is crazy about writing, and has been trying to learn how to do it for fifty years. He has written about a hundred books, all but two or three of them good. People who own radios may know Daniel Pinkwater as a popular commentator and children’s book reviewer on National Public Radio. At one time, he lived in Los Angeles, went to a fancy private school with the children of movie stars, and ate in The Hat numerous times. He lives with his wife, the illustrator and novelist Jill Pinkwater, and several dogs and cats in a very old farmhouse in New York’s Hudson River Valley.

My father is a son-of-a-bitch from Eastern Europe. Where he came from, getting as far as high school was a pretty big deal. He never made it. Neither did my mother, who is along similar lines to my father, although she came over when she was very young and doesn't speak with an accent. As far as my parents are concerned, when you hit high school you are an adult.
In my family, that means you are elˆ