Holling Hoodhood’s got a problem. It’s 1967, and he’s just started seventh grade at Camillo Junior High, and his teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates his guts. Every Wednesday afternoon, half of the kids in Holling’s class go to Hebrew school and the other half go to St. Adelbert’s for catechism. And Holling, as the only Presbyterian in the class, stays behind with Mrs. Baker.And Mrs. Baker makes him read Shakespeare. Outside of class.What follows is a year in Holling’s life, a year of Wednesd [...]

this is my second book for the readventurer challengeis book is verysweet. and ordinarily,a sweet book would make me feel like i had chiggers or something else foul crawling under my skin, and its earnest gee-whizzery would make me feel unclean just because of my mental rolodex of words that are more satisfying to say in moments of astonishment or crisis than "gee whiz."but this one was different. this one was entirely wholesome, yeah, but wholesome and satisfying like fresh-baked bread, and i d [...]

A Review in Two PartsPart OneAriel, recommended this book to me, and she wrote a fine good review of the book. You can find it by clicking on her name. I really liked the book, but didn't love it. I think the things I didn't love about the book were me being a crank. For example, the myopic narrator view point of a seventh grader was great; it caught the distortions that a kid sees the world through and the way teachers and others outside of their own circle are depersonalized into roles instead [...]

This book is a heartwarming mix of nostalgia, life lessons, beauty, and awkward humor with a nice side of brown…light…perfect cream puffs. And let me tell you; it’s really swell.Holling Hoodhood is the only kid in the seventh grade who doesn’t have to attend either Temple or Catechism on Wednesday afternoons. No, instead he gets to spend every single Wednesday afternoon with Mrs. Baker, who hates his guts. Each Wednesday she finds new ways to torture him: endless cleaning of chalkboard e [...]

There’s something very pleasant about kids’ books written in the ’60s. They have an assurance that books written in later, more apologetic and hesitant decades lack. They’re usually untroubled by the social upheaval all around them. Hippies may show up here or there, but the books are more likely to be about time travel, or inventions, or mysteries.This is one of the things you can only learn from consuming texts from that era: that people who lived in the ’60s didn’t know they were [...]

If a junior high aged boy is part of your household, give him this book. He'll love it, and it will do him good. And if you happen to have been in junior high during the year 1968, this book can serve as a reminder of life (and national politics) at that time. In case you don't remember, 1968 is the year that both Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.People today worry about the polarization of American politics. Back in the late 60s things were more polarized, and in a muc [...]

At first I thought this book was too young for me. The protagonist is a 7th grader, an age I am far past. It was a bit slow at first and my initial conclusion was: This would be great book for a middle school boy, especially one you want to get interested in Shakespeare, but not so great for the general reader.And then I kept reading and realized that this was a brilliant, touching and funny book. Schmidt is excellent at making believable, nuanced characters--not something I often see at books a [...]

Oh it's the season to read the books we adults want children to read, and in actual fact they have no interest in doing so. Wednesday Wars sadly falls into that catagory. It's 1968, and Holling Hoodhood is stuck with his teacher every Wednesday afternoon when the rest of his class attends religious education classes that their respective places of worship. Holling learns to love Shakespeare, and how to run a good race, and he learns to understand his teacher, Mrs. Baker, and to love his older si [...]

I think I have come to understand what it takes for a book to be awarded Newbery. It seems these Newberry awarded books are just so wholesome, so full of great life lessons, so sweet and touching in a non-nauseating or preachy way. The Wednesday Wars is just like that.13-year old Holling Hoodhood is in trouble. While his Jewish and Catholic classmates attend religious studies on Wednesday afternoons, he, the only Presbyterian in his class, is forced to spend this time with his English teacher Mr [...]

If I had the option to give 6 stars to The Wednesday Wars, I'd do it. I giggled out loud at least 30 times on the bus *and* the train, earning myself a certain public transit notoriety as That Annoying Lady With The Book. And most people didn't even notice me getting teary during the poignant parts. Of course I'd heard glowing reviews of this book, but I didn't love Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, so I was skeptical. But no longer. Gary Schmidt, please write more! It's 1967-68, and Hollin [...]

Honestly? This book is pretty much brilliant. It blends humor with emotion in just the right doses. It presents a mostly action-less storyline that's still strangely compelling, and it wields theme like a sword. But, unfortunately, it's also got pluralistic/humanistic undertones that I wasn't really a fan of. The book has a lot about "finding yourself" and "choosing your own future." The main character ends up trying out elements of a number of different religions and then having emotional, happ [...]

This book is written like a monthly diary of a seventh grade boy named Holling Hoodhood. It's supposed to be realistic fiction set in 1967, but the events are about as believable as his name. I didn't like it. Here's why.Everybody around Holling is completely insensitive and cold-hearted, including his father, his mother, his sister, his teacher Mrs. Baker, the school principal, his friends and classmates, Doug Sweiteck's brother, and Micky Mantle. Holling is a complete victim of circumstance. H [...]

I love this book. Love, love, love, love, love, love. Love. First, it takes place on Long Island, which I didn't even know when I ordered it for the library. So, sure I got an extra chuckle out of Schmidt's description of LI in November than the reader from, say, Nebraska will. But still, this is just an adorable story and you don't have to be stuck on the Long Island Expressway to enoy it. It reminds me of Richard Peck, if Richard Peck wrote about 1960's surburban life and not 1930's Illinois. [...]

This book was absolutely fabulous! I enjoyed every minute of it. I was very surprised to find out that it was more than just a Jr. High kid putting up with bullies. It was about life and how you deal with different trials no matter what your age is and everyone deals with these trials in different ways. I am totally serious when I say that I laughed and cried and ignored my family until it was done. It is very worthy of the 2008 newberry award.

So good! This book covers middle school drama with humor and wit, with the somber Vietnam War as a backdrop. If you like Konigsburg, you'll love The Wednesday Wars.

One of the best books I have read in a long time. I felt my self reading slower in an attempt to never get to the end.Mrs. Baker is one of the greatest teacher characters I have met.

It oozes charm. In the first half of the book, Schmidt really had me. I absolutely loved everything surrounding the incident with the creampuffs and its aftermath. While the charm remained, the second half lacked a bit of direction. It didn't quite stall, but the plot is a very slender reed here. And outside of Holling and Mrs. Baker, the characters are all pretty thin.There's also a fairly horrifying aspect here. During this book, Holling does the following: Appears as Ariel in a local performa [...]

In the year of 1967, Holling HoodHood is entering the seventh grade and notices that his English teacher Mrs. Baker hates him. She tries her best to make his life miserable, but with his Dad's Architect firm HoodHood and Associates vying to get the contract for her family's Sporting goods store, all Holling can do is grin and bear it even when she tortures him with Shakespeare. Will he survive? Read on and find out for yourself.This was a pretty good audiobook that I borrowed from my local libra [...]

Without too much effort, you could probably come up with a dozen or so books of the Teacher-Who's-Totally-Mean-At-First-Develops-A-Mentoring-Relationship-With-The-Student-And-There-Are-Some-Life-Lessons-And-A-Bunch-Of-Growing-Up-Happens Genre, but dollars to doughnuts, none would be quite as good or as fun to read as Wednesday Wars. Toads, beetles, bats, I loved it--as the Bard might say. This one could probably work as young as fourth grade.

This is a well-written, heart-warming coming of age novel. I really enjoyed it, even if I think it has been written to appeal more to adults than to children. 3.5 stars

I'm not sure it's possible for me to love this book more. It proved me wrong and made me cry. Best coming of age story I've read in a loooong time.

When someone who tends to make good recommendations to you tells you several times that you will probably love something–listen. I finally picked up Gary D. Schmidt and The Wednesday Wars on audio, and I adored it. From first sentence to last, this book was so full and rich and true in every way. I laughed in a way I haven’t laughed listening to audio in well over a year, and I cried. I cried because it was too touching and real and perfect not to.Never before have I read a book that more ex [...]

The title, and the list of 410 things, set me up to expect a battle of pranks. Instead, this funny book reaches deeper, as Holling serendipitously finds himself in various bad and good (and always awkward) situations, and applies Shakespeare to solve them. Maybe someone needs to make his parents read Shakespeare, too. Amusing and touching, I really enjoyed this.

I learned two new ways to cuss this month. First, my sister Aimee told me that in the Fantastic Mr. Fox movie instead of cussing they say, "What the cuss!" Love it! Next, Holling Hoodhood the 7th grade narrator of this delightful book learns all about the best kind of cussing by reading, Shakespeare's "The Tempest." He says,"Caliban-the monster in the play-he knew cuss words. Even Doug Swieteck's brother couldn't cuss like that-and he could cuss the yellow off a school bus." There are great scen [...]

Really charming. It was the same kind of nostalgic book as Penny From Heaven, but better-written, funnier, and more real-feeling. (This one has its obvious parallel in a really good episode of The Wonder Years.) This reminded me of older books about boys coming of age, like It's Like This, Cat and Onion John; but I think the language is wholly modern and accessible. I thought it was so much better--tighter, I guess--than Trouble.Also, a question: looking at the other reviews, and thinking of rev [...]

Man I loved this book. It was just light and fun and funny and nostalgic of childhood. But then it snuck in some great themes and deep thoughts. As a teacher it helped me realize that my students are more capable of considering deep and complex emotions and ideas than I think they are sometimes. This is the perfect summer book if you want something light but still substantial.

This is a beautiful book, so I reviewed it for our librarian blog at work.Holling Hoodhood has many things on his mind. The U.S. is at war with Vietnam. His older sister has painted a flower on her face. His father is trying to run the town’s other architect out of business. And Holling’s teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates his guts. You see, every Wednesday after lunch, half of the kids in Holling’s 7th grade class go to the Temple Beth-El for Hebrew School. The other half goes to St. Adelbert’s [...]

All of the people who gave this book five stars can't be wrong, can they? Well, I've been in the minority before, so I guess I'll put myself there again because I really do not think my middle-school students will understand the humor in this book. It reads as an adult's nostalgic look back at his seventh-grade year during the Vietnam War. Although the situations that Holling, the main character, finds himself in are supposed to be funny, I didn't find them to be humorous because of the undercur [...]

This is one of the best of the best. I hope everyone reads it. I fell in love with the main character. And the teacher--oh--the teacher. She inspires me to go back into the ring!!! I loved the copious amounts of Shakespeare allusions. I laughed, I cried, I read it non-stop. Would love to discuss it with someone after you read it.

Une vraie pépite que je vous recommande mille fois ❤️