Robert Cormier, often considered one of the most influential American writers for young adults, authored ten major novels and many short stories over the course of his career. For much of his life, he was a newspaper writer for the Fitchburg Sentinel, where he won awards for his human-interest stories. Even after he became able to support his family solely by writing novels, he continued to write for the paper on occasion.
Cormier was born in the French Canadian section of Leominster, Massachusetts, the second of eight children. His childhood involved many moves within the French Hill area, but the family never left Leominster, where his father, Lucien, supported the family by working in...
