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by: Gary D. Schmidt
Recommended Age: 10 years and above
Lexile: 990L
Sensitive Content: Atomic bomb drills
"Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like Holling—he’s sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation—the Big M—in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself." (book summary)
What I Thought:
I really enjoyed The Wednesday Wars – it is an unfiltered, comedic Newbery Medal book, that gave insight into life during 1967/68 and during the Vietnam War in Long Island, NYC. It rightfully deserved the award. It was written as if you were living in the Hoodhood house during the late 1960s. At first, to be completely honest, I'd thought this book would be mainly about Holling and Mrs. Baker's "battles" every wednesday at 1:45pm. I'm pleased to say I was happily surprised – yes, at the beginning there were quite a few battles but they learnt to work around each other and began to found commonalities in their interests and personalities. Recommended if you want an award-winning book :)
— SPOILER: Read at your own risk —
Mrs. Baker wasn't the hard, mean, stone-like teacher that the summary pictured her as. She didn't even hate Holling's guts.
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