Imagine discovering that your whole life has been a fiction, your identity altered, and a new family history created. Suddenly nothing is as it once seemed; you can trust no one, maybe not even yourself. It is exactly this revelation that turns 14-year-old Adam Farmer's life upside down. As he tries to ascertain who he really is, Adam encounters a past, present, and future too horrible to contemplate. Suspense builds as the fragments of the story are assembled--a missing father, government corruption, espionage--until the shocking conclusion shatters the fragile mosaic. Young adult readers will easily relate to the shy and confused Adam, whose desperate searching for self resembles a disturbingly exaggerated version of the identity crisis common to the teenage years.
First published in 1977, I Am the Cheese provides an exciting introduction to psychological thrillers. This sensitive, emotional, subtly crafted novel by Robert Cormier (author of The Chocolate War) was a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, as well as a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. --Emilie Coulter
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of its publication, Alfred A. Knopf is proud to reissue I Am The Cheese in hardcover with an introduction by Robert Cormier. "
An ALA Notable Children's Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
Winner of the 1997 Phoenix Award by the Children's Literature Association