The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

*Please note - This review contains spoilers*

The first book I chose to read for my month of reading banned books was Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War. I picked this one because it's always the example that is touted out in front of teachers when the discussion of using "controversial materials" in the classroom comes up. The Chocolate War is my county's chosen example of a book that needs a permission slip from home to be read.

Aside from being considered controversial in my school district, it has quite a history of being banned from school libraries altogether. The Chocolate War is one of the most challenged young adult books to this day. Critics point to its profanity, sexual references, violence, and bleak ending as reasons to keep it out of the hands of young readers. 

Accordingly, each time the this title came up, I'd make a mental note to read it sometime soon. I was intrigued with all of the caution surrounding it. Anything that has so many adults wringing their hands must be pretty good , right?

The Chocolate War is about a handful of students attending Trinity High School in the 1970s. Each year, the students at this Catholic school for boys sell boxes of chocolates to raise money. The boys are used to this activity, but at the opening of the novel, they are surprised to learn that this year, they are expected to sell twice the usual amount of candy at double the price. They grumble about the changes, but carry on with the fundraiser, as they always do.

Everything changes, however, Jerry Renault, an incoming freshman, sets off a war among the students when he refuses to participate in the sale. His small act of defiance disrupts the carefully balanced routines of the school, and sets faculty members and students at odds with each other. As the ripples from Jerry's refusal spread farther and farther, he struggles with the question of whether it's worth it to break away from the status quo and act independently.

I thought that Jerry was written beautifully and was developed well.  We learn at the beginning of the novel that his mother has recently passed away, and that loss begins to make him question what life is really about. As he feels the sharp edges of his own grief, and watches his father sink into a melancholy and boring routine, he wonders if this sadness, this sameness, is all there is going to be in his life. Cormier brings his thoughts to life with a haunting honesty:

"Was this all these was to life, after all? You finished school, found an occupation, got married, became a father, watched your wife die, and then lived through days and nights that seemed to have no sunrises, no dawns and no dusks, nothing but a gray drabness...Didn't a man have a choice?" 

His sudden desire to break free from his sadness and start really living is what drives him to refuse to sell the chocolates. It is, perhaps, the first truly independent decision that he's made in his life, and he stands by it, despite the incredible pressure that he faces from his headmaster and his fellow students. He is growing up and doing something for himself, and he senses that it is important that he do so, even if he isn't completely sure why he is doing it.

The forces acting against Jerry are similarly well written. The acting headmaster of Trinity, Brother Leon, is a true depiction of evil. He emotionally abuses his students in ways that are startlingly cruel, and his behavior becomes even worse when he is placed in control of the annual chocolate sale. In his zeal to appear like a hero, he uses unauthorized school funds to order an irresponsible amount of fundraising chocolate. If the students don't sell it all, his job could be at stake. When the sales start slowing down, he begins to resort to blackmail and threats to get the chocolate sold.

Teachers occupy a special place in most students' minds. We are responsible, kind, and trustworthy. Most students believe that we care about them, or at least, that we wouldn't do anything wrong to them. Brother Leon represents a shift away from this way of thinking, and brings the illusion of the infallibility of teachers crashing down. I was especially struck by the thoughts of one student whom Brother Leon blackmails with a failing grade:

"His stomach lurched sickeningly. Were teachers like everyone else, then? Were teachers as corrupt as the villains you read about in books or saw in movies and television? He'd always worshiped his teachers, had thought of becoming a teacher himself someday if he could overcome his shyness. But now--this...If teachers did this kind of thing, what kind of a world could it be?"

What kind of a world indeed?  The fact that Brother Leon is able to torture his students without feeling a shred of remorse was chilling. He was a cold character, and a very well-drawn one.

Another astoundingly cruel character is Archie Costello, one of Jerry's classmates. He is one of the leaders of a powerful and legendary secret society within the school, The Vigils. The Vigils are a select group of bullies that inflict torture on other students through the use of creative "assignments." When given an assignment by The Vigils, no one refuses to carry it out--to do so would be social suicide. Archie is in charge of selecting the student-victims and coming up with creative assignments for them to carry out. His ideas are sophisticated and horrible; his pranks are designed to hurt everyone involved for the amusement of the group.

Archie is the one who initially causes Jerry to refuse to sell the chocolates with one of his assignments. Jerry's job was to refuse to sell the candy for ten days only. However, as Jerry begins to resent falling into line with the expectations of others, his refusal becomes permanent, lasting long beyond the prescribed deadline. His defiance of the Vigils infuriates Archie, and he sets about bringing Jerry down through various means including peer pressure and outright violence. His final grand plan is to bait Jerry into a boxing match with a disturbingly violent boy in front of the whole school, which he pulls off according to his design.

While the book is peppered with swearwords, violence, and sexual references (mostly to masturbation), its most disturbing element is its ending. To put it simply, Jerry loses the chocolate war. He is beaten to the point of hospitalization in Archie's boxing match. The lesson he learns is not one of standing up for what you believe in. He learns what the rest of us who have become adults already know--that life is cruel, that good doesn't always win, and it's usually not worth it to stand out from the crowd. As he drifts into a bloody, unconscious haze at the end of the novel, his final thoughts were:

"They tell you to do your thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too. It's a laugh...a fake. Don't disturb the universe...no matter what the posters say."   

I was deeply moved by this ending, and thought about it for quite awhile. I was expecting Brother Leon and Archie to get their comeuppance at the end, or at least for Jerry to feel that standing up for himself was ultimately worth it, even if he lost the fight. Instead, the fundraiser ends up being a massive success, Brother Leon and Archie get away with everything they've done, and Jerry ends up wishing that he just would have sold the chocolate. It's a heavy and sobering way to end the story.

When I think back to everything that happens over the course of this The Chocolate War, I understand why so many have tried to ban it over the years. We want to keep our kids in a little bubble of innocence for as long as possible, where life is happy and fair. Where they believe that they can achieve anything if they just work hard enough. This novel destroys that bubble. It shows a good kid fighting against a callous, evil world and losing spectacularly. However, this is precisely why this book should make it into the hands of as many students as possible.

It is ugly and mean and real. It provides endless starting points for conversations about ethics and choices. It will make students root for Jerry and then feel devastated when Archie wins. It will worm its way into their brains and refuse to budge for a long time. These are the marks of a successful young adult book. This is a book screaming to be read in a world full of increasingly self absorbed and overprotected children.

The Chocolate War is undoubtedly one of the best young adult books I've ever read. It's reputation as a classic of the genre is well-deserved. This was a phenomenal way to start off my month of reading banned books. I'm very glad that my county kept referencing it as "controversial," because it brought this gem into my universe. I'm only sorry that it took me so long to get to it.