Robert Cormier was born on January 17, 1925 in Leominster, Massachusetts, where he continues to live.

He was a precocious writer who knew he was to be an author by the time he was in the seventh grade. Cormier recalls being supported in his writing by the teachers at the Catholic schools he attended. He went to Fitchburg State College for only a year, while working in a comb factory. Cormier worked from 1946 to 1948 as a writer of commercials for a radio station, and then left the station to write for the Worcester Telegram And Gazette, where he earned a living while writing fiction. He had published three novels for adults before writing The Chocolate War (1974; see separate entry, Vol.1), a novel he originally intended for an adult audience, but which his editor thought would be best published as a book for young adults. The reception...