The Chocolate War

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is a classic YA novel that has been around since the sixties. I've been meaning to read it for a long time and finally got around to it. Ironically, one of the English teachers came in and saw me reading it and asked me about it. It seems her fifth grade son had checked it out and asked his mom what the word "bastard" meant.

The story is pretty good. It is set in an all-male Catholic high school. A group of boys within the school who call themselves "The Vigils" are sort of the exclusive clique that everybody wants to join. A few kids are picked every year to join The Vigils and must complete initiation.

Every year the school has a huge chocolate sale, and this year the boys are pressured to sell double what they sold the year before. As part of his Vigil initiation, Jerry has to refuse to sell the chocolates. The story takes off from there, and I really liked it.

As for language, bastard was the worst word in there, and the talk is realistic. However, there are several references to masturbation (one boy buys a Playboy magazine, for example), which I thought not appropriate for elementary students. I think it is fine for high school reading, but not for any lower. I called the librarian at the fourth and fifth grade school and found out that the book had come from the AR cart in his teacher's room, not the library. The librarian quietly talked to the teacher and she removed the book from the cart. She had no idea of the content. Much like I received Tyrell (see entry below), she had gotten The Chocolate War in a group of AR books. Luckily, she is pretty sure that the English teacher's kid is the only one who had read it, and his mom is not the type to make a stink about it.

I do recommend this book for ninth grade and up, and I really liked it.