The Chocolate War Reviewed at YA Confidential

I'm over at YA Confidential once again today, reviewing my first YA classic gap book read of the year, The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier.

2014 YA Reading

I'm finally doing one of those years where I actually keep track of every single book I read. For now I'm just using my phone, but I'll eventually update Goodreads. I'm hoping to get to 40 books. I'm a somewhat slow reader, so 40 books would be a good number for me.

Anyway, for Christmas I got this (from my dear friend Amy Del Rosso):

It's a t-shirt and the ARC of Grasshopper Jungle, by my very favorite author, Andrew Smith.

Luckily, I read an earlier ARC of this story, because I'm going to use my enthusiasm for reading this new copy to encourage myself to read three of my biggest kid lit gap books:

The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier

Jerry Renault ponders the question on the poster in his locker: Do I dare disturb the universe? Refusing to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser may not seem like a radical thing to do. But when Jerry challenges a secret school society called The Vigils, his defiant act turns into an all-out war. Now the only question is: Who will survive? First published in 1974, Robert Cormier's groundbreaking novel, an unflinching portrait of corruption and cruelty, has become a modern classic.

Before there was such a thing as Young Adult (three years before I was born, in fact), Robert Cormier wrote one of the all time classic books about teens. I'm reading this one now, and am duly impressed by Cormier's grasp of character.

Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.

I know all about this book. I even participated in the SPEAK LOUDLY Twitter campaign when it was (once again) being challenged, but I still have not read it. I know, I know. This one's up next.

Holes, by Louis Sachar

And so, Stanley Yelnats seems set to serve an easy sentence, which is only fair because he is as innocent as you or me. But Stanley is not going where he thinks he is. Camp Green Lake is like no other camp anywhere. It is a bizarre, almost otherworldly place that has no lake and nothing that is green. Nor is it a camp, at least not the kind of camp kids look forward to in the summertime. It is a place that once held "the largest lake in Texas," but today it is only a scorching desert wasteland, dotted with countless holes dug by the boys who live at the camp.

The trouble started when Stanley was accused of stealing a pair of shoes donated by basketball great Clyde "Sweetfeet" Livingston to a celebrity auction. In court, the judge doesn't believe Stanley's claim that the shoes fell from the sky onto his head. And yet, that's exactly what happened. Oddly, though, Stanley doesn't blame the judge for falsely convicting him. Instead, he blames the whole misadventure on his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather." Thanks to this benighted distant relative, the Yelnats family had been cursed for generations. For Stanley, his current troubles are just a natural part of being a Yelnats.

At Camp Green Lake, the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the treacherous warden is searching for something, and before long Stanley begins his own search—for the truth.

Fate conspires to resolve it all—the family curse, the mystery of the holes, the drought that destroyed Green Lake, and also, the legend of Kissing Kate Barlow, an infamous outlaw of the Wild West. The great wheel of justice has ground slowly for generations, but now it is about to reveal its verdict.

Having won a Newberry, I can only assume this book is more MG than YA, but the forced labor camp for young people aspect has often been compared to similar thematic elements in my own writing, so I figure it's another must read. No I have not seen the movie, and no I will not see the movie, since I can't stand Shia LeBouf.

What are you reading right now?