Robert Cormier

Robert Cormier was born and raised in Leominster, Massachusetts—a city that would become an important inspiration for his writing and serve, disguised under other names, as the setting for many of his novels. Cormier attended a private Catholic school, and there developed an interest in writing; after one of Cormier’s college teachers sent off his first story for publication in a Catholic magazine, Cormier gained the confidence to pursue writing as a career. Cormier’s most well-known novels include the 1977 young-adult book I Am the Cheese, which tells the surprisingly dark story of a young man betrayed by the Witness Protection Program, and 1974’s The Chocolate War, a frequently-banned book about violence, masculinity, tradition, and the terror and anger that can lie at the intersection of all three. Before his death in 2000, Cormier received a lifetime achievement award from the American Library Association for his contribution to the field of young adult literature.