Sometimes a book sits on the shelf for years waiting patiently to be read. Beyond the Chocolate War was one such book.
The reason for the delay was simple, though unnecessary. I didn't want to read it until I'd read The Chocolate War, and I didn't have that one sitting on my shelf. The wait was ridiculous, of course, since of all Robert Cormier's books, The Chocolate War is one of his best known and has always been available. But there it is. I just hadn't gotten around to getting it. Then I did, then I read it, then I could read Beyond the Chocolate War. Simple.
Although the books together span a single year at Trinity High School, they were published over a decade apart. If the first is an exploration of how conformity breeds corruption and the dangers of nonconformity (and it's an oversimplification to say it is), then the second could be seen as an exploration of the ways in which that conformity and corruption is perpetuated when individuals feel isolated and alone -- just like everyone else.
The problem here is that I don't really want to talk too much about the book's plot or characters, as to do so would necessarily constitute spoilers for the first of the two books. Needless to say the books aren't simple or chock-full-of-sunshine -- The Chocolate War is one of the most challenged and banned young people's novels though measured against the movies teenagers watch, it's hard to understand why -- but they're worthwhile reads. Though the situations themselves may seem extreme at first, there is also something uncomfortably familiar about them, too.
And you read an article about a senior citizen being cruelly harassed by grade seven kids on a bus in 2012 ...
"You could have said no anytime, anytime at all. But you didn't ..."
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