Robert Cormier's response to Troyia Collis
<p>In response to Troyia, Robert Cormier explains the title of his piece. As he has in other letters, he explains how language can fall short as a tool of communication. He explains his views that while there is evil in the world, there is also good. In closing, he touches on the impulse of some individuals to corrupt the innocent. This he finds inexcusable.</p>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Robert+Cormier">Robert Cormier</a>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
24 February 1996
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo, Katy Covino
<a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/107" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Troyia Collis's letter to Robert Cormier</a>
JPG, 8.5 x 11 paper
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>
Robert Cormier's letter to Ms. Rosenzweig's class
In this letter to Ms. Rosenzweig's class of eighth-grade students, Cormier addresses many points. First, he explains the title of the book. Then, he looks at various characters, including Mr. Levine and Mr. Hairston. He discusses the influence of the Holocaust and his role in memorializing it. Finally, he remarks on the students' desires to become writers. He advises them to write what they know best.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Robert+Cormier">Robert Cormier</a>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
13 May 1995
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo, Katy Covino
JPG, 8.5 x 11 paper
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter">Letter</a>
Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 19
<p>This seven-page marked typescript of Chapter 19 of <em>Tunes for Bears to Dance To</em> includes penciled line edits. In the chapter, Henry returns to Mr. Hairston after accidentally smashing the village. Mr. Hairston explains his motives and Henry refuses to accept his payment and runs away. He learns that evil is banal.</p>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Robert+Cormier">Robert Cormier</a>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/25" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 3</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/26" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 6</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/27" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 7</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/28" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 10</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/29" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 11</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/30" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 15</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/31" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 17</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/126" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 13</a></p>
<a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/127" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 16</a>
JPG, 8.5 x 11 typewriter paper
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book+chapter+draft">Book chapter draft</a>
<em>Tunes for Bears to Dance to</em> Chapter 17
<p>This six-page marked typescript of Chapter 17 of <em>Tunes for Bears to Dance To</em> includes penciled line edits. In the chapter, Mr. Hairston dismisses Henry from work, telling him to destroy Mr. Levine's village that night. If he doesn't, he's fired. Henry leaves the store and looks back to see how banal Mr. Hairston looks despite being such a bad man.</p>
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Robert+Cormier">Robert Cormier</a>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/25" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 3</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/26" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 6</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/27" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 7</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/28" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 10</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/29" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 11</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/30" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 15</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/32" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance to Chapter 19</a></p>
<p><a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/126" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 13</a></p>
<a href="https://terrorandbullies.omeka.net/items/show/127" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tunes for Bears to Dance To Chapter 16</a>
JPG, 8.5 x 11 typewriter paper
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Book+chapter+draft">Book chapter draft</a>
"<em>Tunes for Bears to Dance To</em>: Prayers and Silence"
Adrienne Kertzer, a student at the University of Calgary, writes on <em>Tunes for Bears to Dance To</em>. She focuses on Henry's closing prayer and positioning God as the only entity able to explain the Holocaust. She also posits that Mr. Levine's recreation of his village may be a way for him to replace God. She also contextualizes this novel as comparatively upbeat for Robert Cormier. To look at the religious framework of the Holocaust, Kertzer considers whose voices can pray aloud and how silence and testimony functions after the Holocaust. Like other Holocaust novels, <em>Tunes For Bears to Dance To</em> works with the idea that language fails to describe atrocity. Kertzer argues that only Henry could speak the closing prayer because he takes on the role of both Jew victim and Nazi follower. Because language cannot do justice to Mr. Levine's story of survival and loss, Henry serves as the proxy. She also considers Hannah Arendt's <em>Eichmann in Jerusalem</em> to compare Hairston with Arendt's conclusions about Eichmann as the banality of evil. Kertzer claims that Hairston is clearly evil rather than banal like Eichmann because a young readership would be confused by a morally ambiguous or void character. Ultimately, Kertzer criticizes the novel for using Henry to ask God for forgiveness when the only people in a position to forgive are the victims of the Nazi concentration camps.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Adrienne+Kertzer">Adrienne Kertzer</a>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo
JPG, 8.5 x 11 paper
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Student+essay+">Student essay </a>
Book Review: "Too Much Terror for Us Rabbits"
Clarence E. Olson reviews <em>After the First Death</em>, stating that he will avoid reading Robert Cormier's work in the future, not for a lack of quality writing, but because its use of sustained terror is nerve-wracking and emotive. He writes "Cormier has the ruthlessness of a terrorist himself, the kind of ideological drive that makes him pull back the bloodied sheet and demand that we look squarely at the consequences of violence." He speaks to the impossible circumstance Cormier places his adolescent characters and the pervasive evil in his stories, making reference to <em>I Am the Cheese</em> to do so.
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Clarence+E.+Olson">Clarence E. Olson</a>
Robert Cormier Collection at Fitchburg State University's Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
Elise Takehana, Anna Consalvo
JPG, newsprint
English
<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Newspaper+article">Newspaper article</a>