The Wednesday Wars

The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt

In The Wednesday Wars, we meet Hollis Hoodhood, the son of a Long Island architect who lives in the "Perfect House" with his perfect seeming family perfectly in the center of town.  However, it is 1967 and things are changing in the United States and in Hollis' world.


As the sole 7th grader that is neither Jewish nor Catholic (and thus does not go to Hebrew school or Catechism after lunch on Wednesday afternoons), Hollis has effectively jailed his teacher who must now occupy him during what she thought would be free time.  Mrs. Baker initially fills his time with punitive tasks but soon comes to the conclusion that the time may be spent more wisely -- through the reading of the plays of Shakespeare.  Over the course of the school year, Hollis becomes a fan of the old Bard, learning about hate and power, goodness and honesty and finally, about "the endurance of love" (p. 172).

This is the thread that is woven through the story of 1967 at Camillo High School.  The teacher's husbands are fighting in Vietnam and Walter Cronkite is reporting nightly on soldier's deaths.  Two leaders who personify hope are horrifically killed -- Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. 

In one amusing incident after another, Holling can never seem to get ahead.  He owes his class cream puffs which leads to a debt owed to Mr. Goldman the baker which leads to a photo of him in yellow tights splashed around the school. He has accidentally released a set of maniacal rats in the school and they seem to be after him. If that isn't enough, his sister has decided to become a flower child, which doesn't go over well with the owner of the "Perfect House".


Schmidt skillfully combines a story of the pains of growing up and figuring out who you are against a painful time in our history, as both the character of Holling and our country grew and changed.  His book bridges a traditional "school/family novel" and historical fiction, neither ignoring the cultural changes that impacted daily life nor wandering into a heavy-handed history lesson (Tunnell, Jacobs, Young & Bryan, pp.152-154). Holling grows stronger through his tribulations, finding that his path may not be the one that his father has set for him -- or it may be -- but he wants to be the one to decide.  He learns that much of what we see on the surface is not the entire story, but that the important people are the ones whose love will endure.

The Wednesday Wars is an excellent book for 5th through 7th graders.  It is appealing to both boys and girls and may be a good choice for reluctant boy readers.

Work Cited: Tunnell, Michael O., Jacobs, James S., Young, Terrell A., Bryan, Gregory. Children's Literature, Briefly. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.