With works including The Chocolate War and I Am the Cheese, Cormier became associated with a movement in young adult literature called new realism. Prior to the mid-1960s, most books written for young adults (that is, for readers in approximately grades six through twelve) had several elements in common: they featured protagonists who were white and from the middle class, mostly living with both parents in suburban neighborhoods; they dealt with themes of growing up and feeling alienated, but they ended with the conflicts resolved and young people feeling safe within their families; they avoided issues such as divorce, drug use, sexual exploration and orientation and other issues that teenagers deal with.

Many fine books that are still considered classics were written during the first half of the twentieth century, but in the 1960s a different kind of book began to appear. These books were...