We All Fall Down

Author: Robert Cormier
Publication date:
Genre: Suspense Young Adult 

About the Work

Challenges in Canada

1998—A parent in Simcoe County (ON) complained to the school board about the presence of this title and Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver in two elementary school libraries. The Cormier novel begins with the description of the vandalizing of a family home and the brutal attack on a 14-year-old girl who lives in the house.

Objection—The violence portrayed in the novel makes it unfit for public schools, the parent said.

Update—When the board decided to move the book into the secondary schools, the parent remained unsatisfied and wrote a letter to the Ontario minister of education, who said (in the fall of 1999) that the school board should handle the problem. A school board spokesperson said, in turn, that the school’s principal was accountable for any decision.

---

  Report a Challenge