Robert Cormier Net Worth

Robert Cormier was born in 1925 in Leominster, Massachusetts, in the French-Canadian section of the town called French Hill. He was the second of eight children. His family moved frequently to afford rent, but never left his hometown. Even when he was much older and owned a summer home, it was only 19 mi (31 km) away from Leominster. In a few of his books, Cormier's hometown of Leominster became the fictional town of Monument, and its village of French Hill became Frenchtown. The nearby city of Fitchburg became Wickburg.

Cormier became a full-time Writer after the success of his first adult novel for teenagers, Now and at the Hour (1960); others followed, such as The Chocolate War and After the First Death. He was concerned with the problems facing young people in modern society, which was reflected in his novels. He soon established a reputation as a brilliant and uncompromising Writer. His awards include the Margaret A. Edwards Award of the Young Adult Services Division of the American Library Associationa lifetime award that recognizes a particular body of work that provides young adults with a window through which they can view the world, and which will help them to grow and understand themselves and their role in society. Cormier won the annual award in 1991 citing The Chocolate War; I Am the Cheese; and After the First Death.

I Am the Cheese (1977), which was named to several contemporary book lists, won the 1997 Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier. That is named for the mythical bird phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.

The Chocolate War has been challenged in various libraries and schools for its language and its depictions of sexual activity, secret societies, and anarchic students. Between 1990 and 2000 it was the fourth most-frequently challenged book in the US, according to the American Library Association.

By that time Cormier had won the 1991 Edwards Award citing I Am the Cheese as one of three 1974 to 1979 books "taken to heart by young adults over a period of years". The American Library Association determined that "Cormier's brilliantly crafted and troubling novels have achieved the status of classics in young adult literature."

Cormier died in 2000 due to complications from a blood clot.