Robert Cormier (1925–2000)

I HAVE WORDS TO SPEND: REFLECTIONS OF A SMALL-TOWN EDITOR (1991) caught my eye in A local thrift store a few years back mostly because of its author, Robert Cormier, who was a favorite of my younger son, who has, I think, read several of his books, mostly written for YA readers. THE CHOCOLATE WARS is perhaps his best known work. I also remember I AM THE CHEESE and FADE. I hadn't known Cormier was also a longtime newspaperman and editor, in Fitchburg and Leominster, two Massachusetts towns I remember from my time in Army training at nearby Fort Devens more than sixty years ago. I enjoyed his columns tremendously, and was reminded of Andy Rooney and Russell Baker, a couple other journalist-writers I've long admired. Cormier writes of mundane things like quitting smoking, Las Vegas gambling, air travel, boxing (Joe Louis), revisiting the house where he was born, and more. But he is most moving when he writes about his family - his mother's hands (always busy), his role as father of the bride, and groom, and especially about his much loved youngest child, a girl born when he and his wife were in their forties. He explains that she was not a "late baby," but that she was born "just in time."

Robert Cormier died in 2000, at 75, but his YA books are still very popular, and are even challenged as unsuitable by all the self-styled would-be censors so prevalent among th Know-Nothing party today. As for these columns so lovingly collected by his wife? I loved them. Long out of print now, of course, but if you can find a copy, I recommend them very highly.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (meer)