Best Selling Books by Robert Cormier

Buddy Walker is troubled by his parent’s recent divorce, and when Harry Flowers suggests a prank, he goes along, just for opportunity to do something different. He doesn’t realize that someone is watching. When Jane Jerome’s house is trashed, and sister brutally injured in a home invasion, she struggles to continue with her life as her family falls apart. The Avenger has witnessed reckless evil. He has killed before and knows that he just needs to wait until the time is right before he can take his revenge. Robert Cormier once again sheds light on the conflict between good and evil and the dark side of human nature. In his classic style, each character’s point of view is revealed invoking both sympathy and horror while showing the complexities of the psyche.

Sixteen-year-old Miro had instructions to kill the bus driver immediately. They would then take the busload of children to the bridge and begin the standoff. Artkin was Miro’s mentor; the mastermind behind this act of terrorism that would get the world’s attention. But Artkin had told Miro that the bus driver would be an old man. Sixteen-year old Kate sometimes substituted for her uncle and drove his bus when he was ill. She even got a special license to do so, and she’d always liked kids. She wondered what was going on when the van in front of her stopped, but when the man and the boy with guns forced their way onto the bus, she knew her worst nightmare was beginning.

Twelve-year old Jason is accused of the brutal murder of a young girl. Is he innocent or guilty? The shocked town calls on an interrogator with a stellar reputation: he always gets a confession. The confrontation between Jason and his interrogator forms the chilling climax of this terrifying look at what can happen when the pursuit of justice becomes a personal crusade for victory at any cost.

Francis Joseph Cassavant is 18. He has just returned home from the Second World War, and he has no face. He does have a gun and a mission: to murder his childhood hero. Francis lost most of his face when he fell on a grenade in France. He received the Silver Star for bravery, but was it really an act of heroism? Now, having survived, he is looking for a man he once admired and respected, a man adored my many people, a man who also received a Silver Star for bravery. A man who destroyed Francis’s life.

Before there was Lois Lowry’s The Giver or M. T. Anderson’s Feed, there was Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese, a subversive classic that broke new ground for YA literature. A boy’s search for his father becomes a desperate journey to unlock a secret past. But the past must not be remembered if the boy is to survive. As he searches for the truth that hovers at the edge of his mind, the boy—and readers—arrive at a shattering conclusion. “An absorbing, even brilliant job. The book is assembled in mosaic fashion: a tiny chip here, a chip there. . . . Everything is related to something else; everything builds and builds to a fearsome climax. . . . [Cormier] has the knack of making horror out of the ordinary, as the masters of suspense know how to do.”—The New York Times Book Review “A horrifying tale of government corruption, espionage, and counter espionage told by an innocent young victim. . . . The buildup of suspense is terrific.”—School Library Journal, starred review An ALA Notable Children’s Book A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Horn Book Fanfare A Library of Congress Children’s Book of the Year A Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award Nominee

IT IS THE summer of 1938 when young Paul Moreaux discovers he can “fade.” First bewildered, then thrilled with the power of invisibility, Paul experiments. But his “gift” soon shows him shocking secrets and drives him toward a chilling act. “Imagine what might happen if Holden Caufield stepped into H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, and you’ll have an idea how good Fade is. . . . I was absolutely riveted.”—Stephen King

Eighteen-year-old Eric has just been released from juvenile detention for murdering his mother and stepfather. Now he’s looking for tenderness—tenderness he finds in caressing and killing beautiful girls. Fifteen-year-old Lori has run away from home again. Emotionally naïve but sexually precocious, she is also looking for tenderness—tenderness she finds in Eric. Will Lori and Eric be each other’s salvation or destruction? Told from their alternating points of view, this harrowing thriller speeds to its fateful conclusion with an irresistible force, and a final twist that will not be easily forgotten.

Denny answered the phone. He was forbidden to ever answer the phone, but at 16, he figured his dad’s rule was just stupid. And Denny is soon plunged into a terrifying ordeal of revenge and madness for a horrific incident that happened 25 years before.

Seventeen-year-old Mike visits his grandmother’s bedside and learns a family secret. A divorced father discovers that only love, not bribes, can keep his daughter “his” on Thursdays. A young white boy finds that friendship—and betrayal—can cross racial boundaries. Robert Cormier is one of America’s most acclaimed writers for young adults. Here are nine touching and intensely personal stories, that confirm that these accolades are deserved. Each story features a brief introduction that explains how the story came to be, or something about the writing. Perhaps not as dark as some of Cormier’s novels, these tales still have his classically haunting themes, which will be savored by readers of all ages.

The school year is almost at an end, and the chocolate sale is ancient history. But no one at Trinity School can forget the Chocolate War. Devious Archie Costello, commander of the secret school organization called the Vigils, still has some torturous assignments to hand out before he graduates. In spite of this pleasure, Archie is troubled that his right-hand man, Obie, has started to move away from the Vigils. Luckily Archie knows his stooges will fix that. But Obie has some plans of his own.

Eugene is remembering the summer of 1938 in Frenchtown, a time when he began to wonder “what I was doing here on the planet Earth.” Here in vibrant, exquisite detail are his lovely mother, his aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, and especially his beloved, enigmatic father. Here, too, is the world of a mill town: the boys swimming in a brook that is red or purple or green, depending on the dyes dumped that day by the comb shop; the visit of the ice man; and the boys’ trips to the cemetery or the forbidden railroad tracks. And here also is a darker world–the mystery of a girl murdered years before. Robert Cormier’s touching, funny, melancholy chronicle of a vanished world celebrates a son’s connection to his father and human relationships that are timeless.

A masterful portrayal of hatred, prejudice and manipulation that challenges readers to examine how they would behave in the face of evil. Henry meets and befriends Mr. Levine, an elderly Holocaust survivor, who is carving a replica of the village where he lived and which was destroyed in the war. Henry''s friendship with Mr. Levine is put to the test when his prejudiced boss, Mr. Hairston, asks Henry to destroy Mr. Levine''s village.

They are all going to die. All of the patients at the Complex are terminal, with no hope of reprieve. But they’ve volunteered to come here, to this experimental clinic to allow themselves to be test subjects. Still, they’re all going to die. All except Barney. Barney cannot remember much about his life before the Complex, but he knows that he’s there as a control. To see how the drugs being tested will affect a nonterminal patient. And then they start testing a new drug on him . . . one that will affect his memory. And Barney starts to remember things he doesn’t want to remember.

When her father is transferred to an army camp in Massachusetts during the Second World War, Darcy feels isolated in her French-Canadian neighborhood until she meets the vivacious Kathleen Mary O''Hara and learns about Catholicism.

A seventy-year-old man learns that life can still hold many surprises.

A collection of pieces, originally written as newspaper columns, that offer touching, humorous and intensely personal observations and anecdotes about small-town life in America.

Gracie Adams, a widowed mother of three, is horrified to discover that one evening''s emotional consolation has led to an unexpected pregnancy.

The new Bible on mayflies explains everything about the major species and is enhanced by numerous drawings, photos, charts, graphs, and an attractive layout.