WEDNESDAY WARS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Schmidt, Gary D.  (2007).  THE WEDNESDAY WARS.  New York: Scholastic, Inc.  ISBN:  054723760X.

PLOT SUMMARY

The year is 1967 and Holling Hoodhood is convinced his 7^th grade English teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates him. To make things worse, he is stuck by himself with her every Wednesday afternoon while the rest of his classmates go to Hebrew school or Catholic mass.  At first Mrs. Baker has Holling doing menial tasks to pass the time, but she decides to make the best of their time together by introducing him to Shakespeare.  Holling is now sure that she hates him.  Why else would she submit him to this torture?  But it turns out Shakespeare is not so bad, and in fact Holling learns some life lessons from the classical writer. 

As he is reading Shakespeare at Camillo Junior High, a war is raging in Vietnam.  Holling is contstantly reminded of this as his father and sister fight about politics over the dinner table. Throughout the school year his relationship with Mrs. Baker improves and she helps him overcome some 7^th grade obstacles like making the cross country team and deciding where to take his crush on Valentines Day.  In the end Holling realizes Mrs. Baker has also helped him to form his own views on the world around him, and come out from under his father’s shadow.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Holling Hoodhood is the kind of character a reader can’t help but love.  His series of misfortunes are so far fetched, but he always approaches each one with humor and optimism.  Seventh grade at Camillo Junior High can sometimes be turbulent like when an eighth grader post pictures of Holling wearing tights with feathers from his Shakespeaere debut.  However Mrs. Baker is a strong pillar  that Holling soon learns he can rely on.  She is a strong willed teacher that has been an Olympic runner, loves Shakespeare, and has a love and respect for others. 

 As the war is waging in Veitnam much of the school, including Mrs. Baker, are worried about loved ones overseas.  Holling’s sister, Heather, is a self-proclaimed flower child and often defies her father as she tries to make him understand the instability the war is causing.  As Holling witnesses these disagreements at home he is beginning to question his own views on life and whether he truly wants to be the next Hoodhood of the family architectural firm, Hoodhood and Assoc. Holling begins to realize that Shakekspeare may have been teaching him some life lessons after all as he slowly evolves into a free-thinking, caring individual. Schmidt creates an entertaining story as Holling tries to decide what he stand for that is a perfect parallel to the Vietnam War as our nation tries to make the same decision.

REVIEW EXERPTS

School Library Journal (July 01, 2007)- “[Readers] will appreciate Holling's gentle, caring ways and will be sad to have the book end.”

Booklist (June 01, 2007) starred review-  “Schmidt, whose Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2005) was named both a Printz and a Newbery Honor Book, makes the implausible believable and the everyday momentous. Seamlessly, he knits together the story's themes: the cultural uproar of the '60s, the internal uproar of early adolescence, and the timeless wisdom of Shakespeare's words.”

Publishers Weekly (April 16, 2007)- “Schmidt delivers another winner here, convincingly evoking 1960s Long Island, with Walter Cronkite's nightly updates about Vietnam as the soundtrack.”

CONNECTIONS

• Let students watch footage of newscast from the Vietnam War 
• Read some of the same plays written by Shakespeare as Holling did.  If teaching younger children use the Shakespeare Can be Fun series by Lois Burdett
• Have a 60s dress up day and eat cream puffs!