I read it when it first came out, like in 1975. My back yard neighbor was my 8th grade reading teacher. She always got advance copies of books and after she had me (and I kicked ass in her class) she started asking me to read them. I read quite a few and reviewed them for her. One of them was Chocolate War. I thought it dealt with some pretty advanced themes, especially considering the book was rated for middle school ages. I read it when I was in high school and told her I thought it would do better for someone my age and older. It was a pretty tough look at life in school, especially when we were selling candy as fundraisers in real life. I thought it was a good book, and you can tell, because I remember it after all these years.
I'd never heard of The Chocolate War before, no, but it sounds really interesting. Isn't it funny, though, how grown-ups are so quick to try to ban books about themes that make *them* uncomfortable? We tend to underestimate kids very much. Sometimes it's justified, but a lot of the times it's mostly for self-serving reasons that they try to ban a book... like if it offers an unflinching and unvarnished portrayal of racism in America (Mildred Taylor's [u]Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry[/u], for instance), you have the establishment clamoring to ban it because God forbid children learn about the nastier aspects of our history.
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I read it when it first came out, like in 1975. My back yard neighbor was my 8th grade reading teacher. She always got advance copies of books and after she had me (and I kicked ass in her class) she started asking me to read them. I read quite a few and reviewed them for her. One of them was Chocolate War. I thought it dealt with some pretty advanced themes, especially considering the book was rated for middle school ages. I read it when I was in high school and told her I thought it would do better for someone my age and older. It was a pretty tough look at life in school, especially when we were selling candy as fundraisers in real life. I thought it was a good book, and you can tell, because I remember it after all these years.
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