The Chocolate War

by Robert Cormier

Jerry Renault is a freshman with good grades who wants to play quarterback in an all-boy Catholic school. He finds himself caught between cruel Brother Leon, whose withering tactics have most of the boys cowering, and the Vigils, to whom the brothers turn a blind eye because “the Vigils kept things under control.” Things come to a head concerning the sale of chocolate, the proceeds of which are essential to keeping the school running. All the boys are “asked” to sell their share, 50 boxes per boy on average. Robert Cormier crystallizes the rite of passage every adolescent must face at one point or another: do I go along, or do I stay true to myself? For Jerry, the question becomes: “Do I dare disturb the universe?” The line, taken from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” appears on a poster in his locker. His question drills into the essence of human existence, the choice between compassion and cruelty. This is just the beginning—if the teen in your life likes this one, he or she will want to delve into Cormier’s entire oeuvre.