The Wednesday Wars

The Wednesday Wars,

by Gary D. Schmidt
Sandpiper

Also by the Author:
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Trouble

Summary: Mrs. Baker hates Holling Hoodhood. There's no two ways about it, as far as he can tell. From the minute he entered her classroom she had it in for him and he's trying not to become paranoid. Now because half the kids in his class are Jewish and half Catholic, every Wednesday Holling (a Protestant through and through) is stuck alone with Mrs. Baker while the other kids go to Hebrew School or Catechism for the afternoon. And what has this evil genius dreamt up for our poor young hero? Shakespeare. He has to read it and get tested on it regularly with the intention (Holling is sure) of boring him to death. The thing is, Holling kind of gets to like the stuff. Meanwhile, though, he has to deal with wearing yellow tights butt-gracing feathers, avoiding killer rats and his older sister, and deciding what to do about Meryl Lee Kowalski, "who has been in love with me since she first laid eyes on me in the third grade," amongst other things. Set during the school year of 1967-68 against a backdrop of Vietnam and political strife, Holling finds that figuring out who you are goes above and beyond what people want you to become.

Personal Review: I enjoyed this book, not just because it was entertaining and easy to read and understand, but because it addressed grown up issues (such as death, love, the Vietnam War, and business, just to name a few) from the point of view of a 7th grader. It didn’t avoid them just because it is a Young Adult book, but it showed the coming of age of a young boy, as he begins to recognize and appreciate the affect of these issues in his daily life. I also liked how it integrated Shakespeare with Young Adults. It would possibly be a good introduction to a unit on Shakespeare, to get kids interested and excited about how they, too, can apply Shakespeare to their lives as Holling did.