Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War

Cormier was born in Massachusetts. Like his characters in The Chocolate War, he attended a private Catholic school in New England. In the school, like many other students, he had both bad and good experiences. One of these good experiences originated from a teacher who had enjoyed Cormier's writing and encouraged him to continue. Although this teacher started Cormier on his career path, her presence and importance in his life could not balance out the horrible incident he was faced with at that school. One day in class, Cormier saw his house on fire from the window. Knowing that some family members had been home at the time, he wanted to leave class immediately and hurry back to his home. This was before cell phones, so he could not just dial

9-1-1 or his mother to check on her. The teacher of that classroom was apathetic to the dire situation and forced Cormier to say prayers before he was freed from the classroom. The Biography of Robert Cormier speaks of this incident: “The nun teaching him at the time made him sit back down and say prayers with the class before he could run out to help his family.” Fortunately, his family was fine but that kind of situation sticks with a person. Obviously after that incident, Cormier was not about to write books about the happy-go-lucky, incorruptible school system. Cormier used his own educational experience and his son's refusal to sell chocolate as motivation for The Chocolate War.
The Chocolate War focuses on Jerry Renault.

As part of an assignment from the clique of school bullies, Jerry is supposed to refuse to sell chocolates for the school for a few days. However, when those few days end, Jerry realizes he does not want to blindly do what others' tell him and continues to refuse to sell the chocolates. This causes a backlash from both the school bullies and the man in charge of the school. The bullies start to orchestrate violent attacks against Jerry to try and get him to submit to selling the chocolates. The man in charge of the school keeps blackmailing the group of school bullies into tormenting Jerry (although the bullies are not really that opposed to tormenting the poor kid who they had given this mission to in the first place). Despite these attacks and threats against him, Jerry stands his ground and does not budge in his conviction to not participate in the school chocolate sale. However, it is difficult for one student to fight off not only a group of bullies but the man in charge of the school. In The Chocolate War, Cormier demonstrates the reality that plenty of students face on a day-to-day basis. The story shows how administrators can easily let their power for to their heads and how bullies can attack and threaten their way into power. In this novel, Cormier does not give an easy out or an inspirational underdog story. The Chocolate War is far from the typical high-school-is-the-best-time-of-our-lives fluff

piece.