Robert Cormier began his life in the French-Canadian section of Leominster, Massachusetts on January 17, 1925. "We lived in a three-story tenement. I remember my mother and father heating up the water so we could take baths. I had a great childhood, surrounded by a large, loving family. There was the loneliness of adolescence, but home was always a haven.

"When I was five, my three-year-old brother Leo died. In 1930 all of us kids had contracted measles, which was a common childhood disease. We all got over it except Leo, who developed pneumonia. In those days, they didn't have antibiotics, so he died. He was a golden-haired child. I remember his death and the little white coffin in the front parlor. But I was so young that a true, awful sense of loss didn't affect me. I felt that there was something weird going on, something terrible, because we moved...