Here’s a little fun. How many different looks does Cormier’s The Chocolate War have, anyway? The book first published in 1974, and it’s remained in print since then, with a number of different cover designs. Let’s talk a walk down cover memory lane.

Before I dive in, I want to note that it is really hard to research the covers of this book. There are many of them, and finding dates for when the cover first appeared wasn’t easy. So if there are big inaccuracies (and I am hoping there aren’t) or you know of additional covers, I’d love to know in the comments. Some of the dates I’m going to throw out are best guesses, too, based on the research I could tease out.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Here’s our 1974 cover.

You might note that this is the same image that was used in the 30th anniversary edition of The Chocolate War, too. What’s interesting is how there’s really not too much about the cover: it’s dark, and there’s the ominous shadow of the boy on the cover. I do love how huge and almost foreboding the shadow looks, too. The boy himself appears young, too. But otherwise, this cover doesn’t tell the reader a whole lot about the book. It fits with what was in vogue in YA covers for the 70s (of what I’ve seen anyway) and it looks like the kind of book that could have a wide appeal to it.

On the left is a cover from the late 1970s, and it sure tells a different story than the original. First, the tagline is pretty great: “A compelling combination of The Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace.” There’s also a blurb from The New York Times that calls the book “Masterfully structured and rich in theme.” And here we have boys with faces, all wearing some nice suit jackets, and they’re standing in front of what I assume is Trinity. All of the boys look high school age here, maybe even older. I can’t tell too well because of the cover’s size, but I could see the guy standing in the middle being an adult, even. He’s dressed a little more professionally. Perhaps one of the Brothers?

The cover on the right is one of the — if not the — original UK covers. I really dig the look on this because I feel like it conveys the story quite well. The boy’s dressed as though he’s going to a fancy prep school, and yet he’s disheveled like he’s scared or nervous or worried. Or all three. His back is against the wall too, which I think gets to the heart of the book without being too obvious or too symbolic. I think the boy looks kind of young for high school but I almost like that because it heightens those thoughts and feelings he’s portraying physically.

The 1985 UK edition of The Chocolate War offers up a boy who is giving the reader one of the fiercest looks I’ve seen on a cover. And that is in no way how I imagine Jerry looking, either. The cover model is a little too exaggerated for what image I have in my mind. But boy do I love that green jacket and pink notebook look going on here. Not to mention the very fitted jeans — I think it’s with what the style was at the time of publication.

Here’s where I wonder about my research on the covers. The one on the right is the cover I got with my ebook and which I know I had a few years ago in print. From what I researched, this was the 1985 cover, too. But there have been, as you’ll see in a bit, some additional cover choices between 1985 and today. Either way, this is probably my favorite of the cover renditions because I think it captures the feelings of the book perfectly. You get the prep school in the back, and it’s not a friendly-looking place (the cloudy background definitely amplifies that). Then you have Jerry on the left, with his button down and tie look, which is definitely prep school. This is how I picture Jerry in my mind, too: he looks like your average teen boy. He has the short, buzzed cut. He’s your everyday looking high school boy. Who is the shadowy figure on the right though? That’s where I like this cover a lot: it could be so many people. And it’s ominous and dark and just looming over Jerry. Plus, there’s the use of shadow and light, of black and white. It’s smart, simple, and gets to the point. Also, I think it’s pretty memorable.

The cover on the left is a 1988 edition. Talk about a very . . . representative cover. There’s Jerry (I’m assuming) buried beneath the weight of boxes of chocolate, while three boys make threatening and ridiculous faces and gestures in the background. I don’t know what’s going on with the guy on the far left because it looks like he’s got it out for the guy in the middle. I could make some guesses on who is who here, but it’s almost more enjoyable to take the image in as a whole. This book came with a tag line, too: “Can one small boy defeat the might of the vigils?” What’s maybe most interesting to me in this cover is that I don’t recall Jerry every being physically buried under the weight of the literal boxes of chocolate. I mean, it’s up to his chin!

In 1986, we had our first cover which alludes to the fact Jerry plays football in the story. Doesn’t he ever look sad in this one? He’s standing, surrounded by clouds, and there’s a school far in the background. While this is far from my favorite cover for the book, what I do like is that the shadow is there again. I like the play of the black and white and the shadow and light.

Here’s a 1991 edition from Britain, and all I can say is that it certainly dates itself. Why are the chocolates so many fancy shapes surrounding Jerry’s face? What’s going on in the background with his face, is it a really big shoulder (presumably shoulder pads with his football uniform) or is there just a chunk of white coloring beneath a chunk of dark blue coloring?

On the right, a 2001 paperback edition of The Chocolate War offers us something technicolored and out of the early 1990s. Why is the guy green here? And why does he have really long hair and look like he’s wearing something that would never fly in a prep school? I guess I’m glad we see the first, as if there really is a war to be fought. The chocolate-colored background is a nice touch.

The cover on the left is for one of the bindup editions out in the 2000s, so it includes both The Chocolate War and Beyond the Chocolate War. It’s pretty non-memorable and not noteworthy, though I like that it uses chocolate coloring, I guess.

But check out this cover for one of the Recorded Books editions of the book. Talk about prep school. Look at this proper young boys. None of them would ever be bad. None of them would ever do nasty things. They all look so, so innocent. And so YOUNG. No way those are high schoolers! But I do have my eye on the curly haired red head in the back on the right. He looks like trouble. I should note that none of these books looks a thing like what I imagined anyone in the book to look like.

I could find nothing about this cover, and I would love to know more. When I first ran across it, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why a phone? Why is there a boy hiding in the background. But, after I read the book, this cover actually made perfect sense. The prank calling. The emotions expressed in the veiny arm itself. The way the phone looks like it’s being slammed down. Then the boy in the background, he looks a little scared or intimidated. But he’s not cowering. He’s not entered into complete fear yet. The color scheme on the cover makes me think this is an early edition — 1970s or 1980s — but I can’t find anything to tell me a definitive date.

Of all the covers, I think my favorite is the one that’s still around in print today, noted above. It seems most representative and most appealing to me. It has a timeless quality to it.

Do you have any preferences? Know of any other English (US, UK, or Australian) editions or have any dating information on these covers? I’d love to know.

And you better believe I have a post coming later this week with some of the amazing foreign editions of The Chocolate War that aren’t in English. There are some stark differences in what images are representative of the story elsewhere — some which are good and some which are all together misleading.

I’ve read The Chocolate War before.

It was one of the first YA books I read in the YA Lit class I took in graduate school. Which means it’s a book Kimberly’s read, too — for those of you just tuning in, she and I met when we took that class.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself, circa September 2008: I had yet to actually work in a library with teenagers. I’d worked with teenagers before, but it was in a classroom setting for one summer. These were a very narrow group of teens. And this is nothing against them because they were wonderful to work with, but they all came from privilege, were all gifted, and they were all selected to participate in this series of advanced-level summer classes.

In other words, I’d yet to see the extremes of teens. I saw a pretty homogenous group with similar backgrounds.

My reading and reflection upon books and their audience very much was telling in my own experiences. (Isn’t it neat to see that in yourself, though? That’s one huge benefit of keeping track of your thoughts on books — you see your own growth and development as a reader and thinker and professional.)

To be fair, I don’t think I liked any of the books I read in the class I took. We read only a handful of classics, and the book that was most updated in our reading was The Geography Club. I did record all of my reactions to the books in Goodreads, so naturally, I have a nice review of The Chocolate War to share:

Not as controversial as I hoped, though I was disgusted by the characters discussing how they raped attractive girls with their eyes.

That’s all I had to say about Cormier’s book on my first read. I suspect my second read might merit a few more words, and I’m dying to know whether either of these statements still hold true. What did I want in terms of controversy in 2008? Will I see gender issues still? I’m actually pretty surprised to see that pop up in my review because when I thought about my reading of the book back then, gender wasn’t something I remembered at all. But it was apparently noteworthy!

Now, I should note that I did a couple of significant projects on banned and challenged books before I went to library school. My threshold for what I controversial, well. Let me say The Chocolate War may have been the most gritty (if that’s even the word I want) book I read to date at that point. So my perspective was not necessarily what it is today now that I’ve discovered dark contemporary books are totally my thing.

I’ve read so much more since 2008. I’ve also learned about reading and about the history of YA. I bring a lot more to the book and to the history of it now. Will this context and experience change my reading experience?

I guess we’ll find out at the end of the week.

This is the week! Liz Burns, Leila Roy, and myself will be reading and blogging about our experiences and thoughts about Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. Anyone is welcome to join in during the week, by either blogging about the book or contributing a piece to STACKED. Just leave a note and I can hook you up. I’ve got a few posts planned throughout the week tackling everything from first impressions to a formal review and more things I don’t want to lay out quite yet.

If you’re joining in and posting on your own blog, please drop a link for each post you write in the comments. We’ll try share it across our social networks, and we’ll do a roundup of selected posts at the end of the week to highlight everyone else’s thoughts and posts. And please feel free to steal our image above and use it for your posts!

Let’s get real with one of the most well-known YA, not to mention one of the foundational, realistic titles.