Robert Cormier

Adrienne E. Gavin

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780230313323
• eBook ISBN: 9781137284884
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This compelling New Casebook is the first essay collection devoted to the work of groundbreaking American author Robert Cormier. Written by a team of international children's literature experts, the volume offers a variety of critical and theoretical approaches to the range of Cormier's controversial young adult novels. The newly-commissioned essays explore the author's earlier best-known writings for teenagers as well as his later less critically examined texts, focussing on key issues such as adolescence, identity, bullying and child corruption. Recognizing Cormier's achievement, this long-overdue critical resource is essential reading for anyone with an interest in his influential work and lasting impact on young adult fiction.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Fade to Black: Adolescent Invisibility in the Works of Robert Cormier
• 2 ‘So many disguises’: Questions of Identity in Robert Cormier’s After the First Death and Heroes
• 3 Fascinated by Evil: Robert Cormier as a Catholic Novelist
• 4 ‘Nobody out of context’: Representations of Child Corruption in Robert Cormier s Crime Novels
• 5 ‘You have to outlast them’: Bullying in The Chocolate War and Beyond the Chocolate War
• 6 Männerbund and Hitler-Jugend: Queer Perceptions of Nazis In and Beyond Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War
• 7 Inducing Despair?: A Study of Robert Cormier’s Young Adult Fiction
• 8 Framing the Truth: Robert Cormier, His Readers and ‘Reality’
• 9 Interactive Texts and Active Readers: Robert Cormier’s ‘Adolescent Poetics’ in the Light of Wolfgang Iser’s Theory of Aesthetic Response
• Bibliography of Robert Cormier’s Works and Further Reading
• Index