The Education of Robert Nifkin [Hardcover]

Daniel Manus Pinkwater (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1998

Set in the 1950s in Chicago, Robert Nifkin tells his highly unorthodox high school experiences in the form of a college application essay.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Education of Robert Nifkin is clearly the work of a disturbed mind. But then, if you've read Daniel Pinkwater's 5 Novels, or any of his other excellent titles, you already know that. This book, set in the 1950s, is filled with a typically Pinkwaterian cast of unique and hysterically funny characters. Robert Nifkin's dad, for example ("My father is a son-of-a-bitch from Eastern Europe"), is full of advice for his young son, like "What doesn't kill you makes you strong--or it kills you." And his teachers! His high school, Riverview, is populated by a collection of anticommunists such as his homeroom teacher, Mrs. Kukla, who warns him on his first day, "I can smell a Bolshevik a mile away--and I'm smelling one now." To avoid taking gym, the overweight Robert joins the ROTC, where he meets the only noncommunist of the bunch, the Marxist-theory-spouting Sergeant Gunter.

Robert isn't engaged by the primary method of instruction at Riverview (which is copying from the blackboard), so he stops attending, is threatened with expulsion for truancy, and convinces his parents to send him to the private Wheaton School. At Wheaton, instruction includes many trips to the library, the movies, and late-night sessions at Maxie's Bookshop, crowded with "loonies, lonelys, speakers, listeners, debaters, radicals, beatniks, artists, insomniacs, and chess players." Here, Robert's favorite teacher, Mr. Gerkowitz, asks about his postgraduation plans: "You, Nifkin, while slightly repellent, do not actually present yourself as a borderline case, so it is possible that some college will actually take you. Is this your desire?" Fortunately for us, it is--the book, set forth as Robert's college application essay, is the result. Pinkwater is surely today's funniest writer of books for young people, and readers seeking off-the-wall, irreverent humor won't be disappointed by this bevy of sardonic wit. (Ages 12 to 15) --Neil Roseman

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up-For the essay part of his application to St. Leon's College, senior Robert Nifkin relates his past year, which began at mind-numbing Riverview High School followed by his mid-year transfer to the Wheaton School, a pseudo-prep school, where he finishes 10th grade, compresses 11th into summer school, and begins his final stretch toward the transcript necessary for college admission. From the succinct opening sentenceA"My father is a son-of-a-bitch from eastern Europe"Ato Robert's penchant for stogies (his dad thinks cigarettes are for pimps) to his autodidactic adventures at the Chicago Public Library and the Clark Theater, it's pretty obvious that he will respond to the bohemian call of a private school with no perceptible curriculum. And, too, Wheaton is pleasantly devoid of the institutionalized religious and political harassment Robert faced from the loud, angry teachers at Riverside. Pinkwater fans should appreciate the anarchy as well as the irreverent descriptions of high school life and may even take him up on his summer reading list or research "beatnik" culture for some clues to this weird '50's milieu in which cute Wednesday Addams-like teenage girls dress all in black and embrace Weltschmerz and high-school teachers celebrate with their students at the beer garden.
John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; 1st edition (April 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374319693
• ISBN-13: 978-0374319694
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,514,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel Pinkwater 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book cures acne!, August 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Education of Robert Nifkin (Hardcover)

Oh, I must swoon.

I just finished "The Education of Robert Nifkin," and it was bliss.

Having occasionally lived in Chicago and having occasionally written college application essays during my youth, I find that this book leaves me feeling more myself. How can this be?

What's odder yet, I suspect that anyone who reads Mr. Pinkwater's latest, brilliant book will have the same feeling.

There will be some part of the education of Robert Nifkin that was also a part of your education, and remembering that will educate you anew.

Beautiful.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alternative Education, July 23, 2006

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Education of Robert Nifkin (Paperback)

Daniel Pinkwater is perhaps the funniest writer of young adult fiction alive, but also not very well-known. His books are hard to find in bookstores, but prove to be a treasure and a laugh-out-loud treat when found. "The Education of Robert Nifkin" is no different.

The novel is written as a response to the following college application essay: "Characterize, in essay form, your high-school experience." Set in 1950s Chicago, the novel follows the title character through his first days at Riverview High School, a setting he soon comes to abhor. No one, teachers or students, seem to care about the missing education, the teachers indoctrinate the students against communists and Jews, and Robert finds himself destined to be a nerd. He soon stops going, and must face being kicked out and sent to an alternative school, where he has much more freedom, and truly begins to learn for the first time.

"The Education of Robert Nifkin" is a quick, funny read. Anyone familiar with Pinkwater's other writings will find familiar territory (and characters), and anyone familiar with Chicago will enjoy the references to landmarks and neighborhoods. The novel reads a little too much like a crazy quilt of stories, not necessarily focused or related, but enjoyable nevertheless.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Geek Meets World; Opts Out. Familiar Pinkwater territory, September 24, 1998

By 

Stefan Jones (Suburbs of Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Education of Robert Nifkin (Hardcover)

Robert Nifkin, socially awkward son of eccentric immigrants, finds himself an inmate in a god-awful Chicago high school staffed by incompetent, bigoted, intolerant teachers. With the help of fellow free-thinking oddballs, Robert discovers 1950s Chicago bohemia and the benefits of self education. Great digs at vapid consumer culture and intellectual conformity are made along the way.
Though arguably Pinkwater's best written and best paced work to date, I couldn't help feeling I'd read most of this before. Nifkin's Chicago will be very familiar territory to fans of _The Snarkout Boys_ books and Pinkwater's autobiographical essay collections.
The most serious problem with _The Education of Robert Nifkin_ is it's length. It ended far too soon, darn it!
Uptight parents offended by the idea of a teenager cutting classes and smoking cigars should buy this one for their kids anyway and lighten up a bit.
--Stefan Jones