{"id":332,"date":"2009-01-13T23:54:53","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T03:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/13\/review-of-the-wednesday-wars-by-gary-d-schmidt\/"},"modified":"2009-01-23T22:38:57","modified_gmt":"2009-01-24T02:38:57","slug":"review-of-the-wednesday-wars-by-gary-d-schmidt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wednesday_wars.jpg\"<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wednesday Wars<\/em><\/p>\n

by Gary D. Schmidt<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.clarionbooks.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Review written\u00a0February 23, 2008.
\nClarion Books, New York, 2007.\u00a0 264 pages.<\/p>\n

Starred Review.<\/p>\n

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009: #2, Children’s Fiction<\/p>\n

\u201cOf all the kids in the seventh grade at Camillo Junior High, there was one kid that Mrs. Baker hated with heat whiter than the sun.<\/p>\n

Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holling Hoodhood knows that the teacher has it in for him because he\u2019s the only kid in his class who doesn\u2019t spend Wednesday afternoon either at Hebrew School or Catechism at the Catholic church.\u00a0 Instead, Holling is stuck with Mrs. Baker, and Mrs. Baker is stuck with him.<\/p>\n

This book reminds me of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian<\/em>.\u00a0 Both books look at the difficulties, dramas and dilemmas of student life with a large dose of humor.\u00a0 Mind you, Holling\u2019s difficulties are not as dire as those of Junior in the Absolutely True Diary.\u00a0 However, he has some notable challenges, perhaps slightly on the bizarre side\u2014involving rats, cream puffs, a fairy, baseballs, and William Shakespeare.<\/p>\n

I love the scene where Holling meets the principal, because it sounds so true to what a principal would say:<\/p>\n

I had to wait outside the door.\u00a0 That was to make me nervous.
\nMr. Guareschi\u2019s long ambition had been to become dictator of a small country.\u00a0 Danny Hupfer said that he had been waiting for the CIA to get rid of Fidel Castro and then send him down to Cuba, which Mr. Guareschi would then rename Guareschiland.\u00a0 Meryl Lee said that he was probably holding out for something in Eastern Europe.\u00a0 Maybe he was.\u00a0 But while he waited for his promotion, he kept the job of principal at Camillo Junior High and tested out his dictator-of-a-small-country techniques on us.
\nHe stayed sitting behind his desk in a chair a lot higher than mine when I was finally called in.
\n\u201cHolling Hood,\u201d he said.\u00a0 His voice was high-pitched and a little bit shrill, like he had spent a lot of time standing on balconies screaming speeches through bad P.A. systems at the multitudes down below who feared him.
\n\u201cHoodhood,\u201d I said.
\n\u201cIt says \u2018Holling Hood\u2019 on this form I\u2019m holding.\u201d
\n\u201cIt says \u2018Holling Hoodhood\u2019 on my birth certificate.\u201d
\nMr. Guareschi smiled his principal smile.\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s not get off on the wrong foot here, Holling.\u00a0 Forms are how we organize this school, and forms are never wrong, are they?\u201d
\nThat\u2019s one of those dictator-of-a-small-country techniques at work, in case you missed it.
\n\u201cHolling Hood,\u201d I said.
\n\u201cThank you,\u201d said Mr. Guareschi.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Set against the backdrop of the Sixties, this is an entertaining and touching story about being a kid and finding your way in life.<\/p>\n

I like the way Mrs. Baker sums up Shakespeare:<\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare did not write for your ease of reading,\u201d she said.
\nNo kidding, I thought.
\n\u201cHe wrote to express something about what it means to be a human being in words more beautiful than had ever yet been written.\u201d
\n\u201cSo in <\/em>Macbeth, when he wasn\u2019t trying to find names that sound alike, what did he want to express in words more beautiful than had ever yet been written?\u201d
\nMrs. Baker looked at me for a long moment.\u00a0 Then she went and sat back down at her desk.\u00a0 \u201cThat we are made for more than power,\u201d she said softly.\u00a0 \u201cThat we are made for more than our desires.\u00a0\u00a0 That pride combined with stubbornness can be disaster.\u00a0 And that compared with love, malice is a small and petty thing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/wednesday_wars.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt http:\/\/www.clarionbooks.com\/ Review written\u00a0February 23, 2008. Clarion Books, New York, 2007.\u00a0 264 pages. Starred Review. Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009: #2, Children’s Fiction \u201cOf all the kids in the seventh grade at Camillo Junior High, there was one kid that Mrs. Baker hated with heat whiter than the sun. Me.\u201d Holling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,32,31,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-historical","category-stand-outs","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}