Sasha Starovoitov, author of ClassicNote. Completed on February 11, 2022,
copyright held by GradeSaver.
Updated and revised by James Cooper February 14, 2022. Copyright held by GradeSaver.
Colson Whitehead. The Nickel Boys. New York: Doubleday, 2019.
Allen, Greg. “Florida's Dozier School for Boys: A True Horror Story.” NPR, NPR, 15 Oct. 2012, https://www.npr.org/2012/10/15/162941770/floridas-dozier-school-for-boys-a-true-horror-story.
Alter, Alexandra. “Colson Whitehead's next Novel Tackles Life under Jim Crow.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Oct. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/books/colson-whitehead-new-novel-will-tackle-life-under-jim-crow.html.
Saldívar, Ramón. “The Second Elevation of the Novel: Race, Form, and the Postrace Aesthetic in Contemporary Narrative.” Narrative, vol. 21, no. 1, Ohio State University Press, 2013, pp. 1–18, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23321834.
Sehgal, Parul. “In 'the Nickel Boys,' Colson Whitehead Continues to Make a Classic American Genre His Own.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 July 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/books/review-nickel-boys-colson-whitehead.html.
Livingstone, Jo. “Colson Whitehead, American Escape Artist.” The New Republic, July 30, 2019, https://newrepublic.com/article/154550/colson-whitehead-american-escape-artist.
The Nickel Boys Questions and Answers
The Question and Answer section for The Nickel Boys is a great
resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
Elwood Curtis is a young boy who grows up during the period of the Jim Crow laws. He is black and is removed from his local school to a place called the Nickel Academy, which is a place where Elwood gets new friends, but above all a difficult and...
When Elwood “wins” a set of encyclopedias he discovers that they are blank inside. This foreshadows his failed attempts to improve his prospects through education. On his first day of college, Elwood is arrested and sent to the Nickel Academy...
The Nickel Boys study guide contains a biography of Colson Whitehead, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
