Pinkwater's novels generally have much in common: disaffected protagonists, awful schools, and strange but friendly eccentrics. Closest to Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars in theme and setting may be The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death and The Education of Robert Nifkin. Each of these novels develops plot and characterization in the same way. They open with unhappy young men who appear to be fat (he is "portly," Leonard says defensively) who are pushed into inhospitable schools in which they feel like utter outsiders. They escape their schools in various ways. Nifkin simply does not bother to show up for his Alan Mendelsohn, the Boyfrom Mars classes; Walter Gault and Winston Bong in The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death skip school some days to go adventuring and sneak out of their homes at night. Each novel gradually increases the strangeness of events...