Tunes for Bears to Dance To

April 4, 1994
Numb and lonely after his brother's death, Henry is befriended by a bigoted new employer, who attempts to involve the boy in an act of cruelty against a Holocaust survivor. Ages 12-up.

September 1, 1992
Gr 6-9- -This brief, compelling book conveys the devastating effects of evil, whether its form is as huge and incomprehensible as the Holocaust, or as small and personal as another human being. Henry, a young teenager, is lucky to be employed. Since his brother's re cent death, his father is paralyzed by depres sion; his mother works long hours to support the family. It's the early 1950s, and, with the return of the servicemen, housing and jobs are scarce. Unfortunately, Henry's boss is a bigot ed, abusive individual whose hatred of others is so consuming that he intentionally sets out to corrupt the boy's goodness. He forces Henry to commit an ugly, violent act and betray a friendship with an elderly neighbor who has lost his home and family to the Nazis. As part of his rehabilitative therapy, Mr. Levine loving ly carves his vanished village and its population out of wood. The scenes in which he is "home" again demonstrate the Holocaust's horror in a deeply moving manner, and Cormier wrench ingly personalizes the man's grief. Tunes for Bears to Dance To, more a parable than a fully realized novel, is sharp, short, and to the point. The characters are fairly one-dimensional and their circumstances are portrayed as black or white. Why they are "good" or "evil" is not explained, and little room is left for shades of gray. They simply embody the concepts Cor mier is exploring. This book has limitations, but it will not be easily forgotten. It will make fascinating material for group discussion. - Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, County of Henrico Public Library, Richmond, VA

August 31, 1992
Eleven-year-old Henry is largely on his own after his brother's death: his family has moved to a new city, his father has slipped into depression and his mother waitresses long hours to support the family. In this vacuum, the boy attracts the malignant attention of his employer, a grocer who tries-almost successfully-to coerce Henry into an evil act solely for the twisted pleasure of corrupting innocence. Cormier has powerfully captured Henry's isolation and especially Mr. Hairston's gratuitous, petty, and yet not inconsequential meanspiritedness-the character's reflexive misanthropy, manifested in dozens of small unkindnesses each day, is chilling. The man's greater scheme, which requires Henry to ruin the handicraft of a concentrationcamp survivor who has few other sources of pleasure, is less gripping, in large part because the plan, and Henry's even fleeting acquiescence in it, seem logistically and psychologically far-fetched, as if they were conceived not by the characters but by Cormier in his wish to convey a thematic concern. Ages 12-up.

January 1, 1992
Once again, Cormier explores a child's confrontation with the evil side of humanity. When Mr. Hairston, the racist grocer for whom Henry works, threatens to fire Henry and complicate his family's life if he does not destroy the miniature village a Jewish man has lovingly and painstakingly created, Henry wrestles with his decision. Geared toward a younger audience, the novel lacks the power typical of Cormier's work, and the characters are disappointingly one-dimensional, but the portrait of evil may inspire discussion.

(Copyright 1992 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)