I am the Cheese by Robert Cormier

• ISBN: 044940605
• Plot summary: Adam Farmer just wants to get to his dad. He's on his bicycle, racing from one town to the next, though his mode of transportation doesn't go as quickly as he would like. He stops from town to town as he catches his breath and meets various townspeople. Interspersed with his various interactions with people on his trip, we have interviews of a young man being interviewed by a doctor. They're trying to find out what happened in Adam past. Slowly, we learn that Adam and his family were placed under the witness protection program and he is just now recounting how he figured out this information as a teenager for the first time. As the doctor and Adam get closer and closer to the truth, Adam gets closer and closer to Rutterberg, Pennsylvania to see his dad. Only Adam never gets to his dad.
• Critical evaluation: What a thrilling journey Adam takes you on! In one storyline, Adam is trying to figure out what happened to his family and why he has ended up in the mental hospital. In the second storyline, Adam is biking to see his father in another town--why he lives in another town we do not know. On his trip, his bike is stolen by a young man named Varney and he is thrown off his bike into a ditch by Whipper. These of course turn out to be other characters at the hospital where he lives, and according to the medical documents, Adam has worked through his life story with the doctor once a year for three years. The story is told effectively through an intricate set of details that put Adam in both the past and the present, and as a reader, it is thrilling to piece these two story lines together as Adam tries to get back to where he was.
• Reader's annotation: Adam just wants to get to Rutterberg, Vermont to give his dad the package, but Adam never quite gets there.
• About the author: Robert Cormier was inspired to continue writing young adult books after his success with The Chocolate War. He was given the Margaret A. Edwards Award by the ALA in 1991.
• Genre: Fiction
• Curriculum ties, if any: none
• Booktalking ideas:
• What would you do if you had to go into hiding?
• Reading level/interest age: 14+
• Challenge issues: None
• Why was this item included? Highly rated by numerous YA publications.