This book is "just swell"
Holling Hoodhood has Mrs Baker as his English teacher. He is sure she hates him - that's HATES with all capital letters. This situation is made worse by the fact that Holling has to spend every Wednesday afternoon with Mrs Baker and more importantly Mrs Baker has to spend every Wednesday afternoon with Holling - she calls him Mr Hoodhood - and this is all because he happens to be Presbyterian.
On Wednesdays half the class go to Temple Beth-El for Hebrew school and the other half to Saint Adelbert's for Catechism. Holling gets to stay at school with Mrs Baker. Yes every Wednesday for the whole year.
After a few weeks of cleaning the classroom and the blackboard dusters (it is 1968) and a small disaster with the class rats - Mrs Baker decides Holling will read Shakespeare plays and answer quiz questions (there are 150 of them each time). What Mrs Baker perhaps does not expect is that Holling loves this. He is an intelligent boy and he is well read. We know has has read Treasure Island four times, Kidnapped twice and The Call of the Wild. Reading the plays adds a whole new dimension of enjoyment for Holling. He particularly enjoys the language of Shakespeare especially the insults. He even scores a part in the local amateur production wearing yellow tights and feathers.
There is a lot going on the Holling. His dad is just awful. He is an ambitious man who wants to win every architect contract in the town. He has no time for his son. His mother just seems ineffectual and, can I say, simpering. Then we have the cast of school bullies especially Doug Swieteck and his brother.
Characters
Mr Guareschi Principal
"Mr Guareschi's long ambition had been to become dictator of a small country. 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."
Mrs Baker Teacher
She seems to only focus on the lessons but underneath a lot is going on for her especially in relation to her son who has been deployed to Vietnam.
Meryl Lee Kowalski Student
Her dad runs the other architect firm in town. Her relationship and friendship with Holling slowly develops - it is a beautiful thing to watch.
Mai Thi Student originally from Vietnam
Danny Hupfer Student
I wish he was my friend. The scene when he insults the famous baseball player after this guy insults Holling is just splendid.
Rats Sycorax and Caliban (from The Tempest)
The parts in this story about the rats are not for the faint hearted - you have been warned.
Coach Quatrini
Favourite expression "At tempo".
Mrs Bigio School Cook
When you read the final scenes in this book you will understand why, for me, Mrs Bigio is a true hero. And it is the actions of Mrs Bigio when she makes nuoc mau for the class and for Mai Thi that made me cry.
Heather Holling's sister
Her voice in this story is so important as a way to understand the complex politics of this time.
Laughs
The names of the school textbooks - English for you and me; Mathematics for you and me; Geography for you and me.
The English concepts taught by Mrs Baker - diagramming sentences such as "He kicked the round ball into the goal." "The girl walked home."
And this one for Holling - "For it so falls out, that we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value, then we find the virtue that passion would not show us while it was ours."
"No native speaker of the English language could diagram this sentence. The guy who wrote it couldn't diagram this sentence. ... 'If you had been listening to my instructions, you should have been able to do this,' said Mrs Baker, which is sort of like saying that if you've ever flicked on a light switch, you should be able to build an atomic reactor."
Atomic Bomb Awareness Month
"We stayed under our desks for eighteen minutes, until the wind would have whisked away the first waves of airborne radioactive particles, and the blast of burning air would have passed overhead ... and every living thing would have been incinerated except for us because we were scrunched under our gummy desks with our hands over our heads, breathing quietly and evenly."
This book has it all! I laughed, I nearly cried, I marveled at the references to Shakespeare and US History, I cheered when things went the right way for Holling and I cringed (big time) when things went horribly wrong for Holling. If I knew him in person I'm sure I would reach out and give him a big hug of reassurance. Boy oh boy life has thrown some hideous curve balls at this kid. Read this part again and then marvel at the fact that I am an adult, woman, in Australia, with absolutely no knowledge of baseball. I am not a American adolescent and yet I loved this book so so so much! I'm visiting some adult readers this week and I would love them to read this book so I think The Wednesday Wars will appeal to readers 12+ and to all adults.
At its heart this is a book about relationships. Every relationship is special in this story but the best one in my view is the one between Holling and Mrs Baker.
The Wednesday Wars was a Newbery Honor book in 2008. It is considered an American classic so it is in print. I read my copy as an ebook. Please take a few minutes now to read this review by Betsy Bird - her words are far more eloquent than mine.
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