The Wednesday Wars

Genre: Historical Fiction

Schmidt, Gary D.. The Wednesday Wars. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 2007. Read by Joel Johnstone. Audiobook. Scholastic Audio Books, 2007.  ISBN: 978-0439023405, Book ISBN: 978-0-547-23760-2

Holling Hoodhood is a 7^th grade boy in 1967 who thinks the world is against him.  His father expects him to take over the family business, his sister is embarrassed by him, and he believes Mrs. Baker, his teacher, is out to get him, along with some other bullies.  Through reading Shakespeare’s plays with Mrs. Baker on Wednesday afternoons while everyone else is in Catholic Catechism class or Hebrew school and using Shakespeare’s curses from the plays, Holling may just find himself, even through all the strife the world is going through with the Vietnam War and the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.

This audiobook presentation of The Wednesday Wars is an unabridged version read by Joel Johnstone.  The audiobook contains 6 CDs of the story presented in a first person narrative by Johnstone.  Johnstone is an actor that has done voiceovers for video games and has been in numerous short films.  More information can be found about him at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1179578/ on the Internet Movie Database. Johnstone creates several different voices for the different characters by adding an element similar to listening to a play or radio broadcast.  The entire recording is clear and engaging.  The first CD of the audiobook has an introduction to the book presenting the title and who the story is being read by. 

As you listen to Holling’s story, you easily become sympathetic to his situation.  I think all of us have felt like the world was against us at one time or another.  This is a coming-of-age story presented at a time in history when the country was not sure of what was going to happen next.  Holling is a kid who is more interested in baseball than his flower child sister Heather or even reading Shakespeare. 

Schmidt writes an incredible story that, even listening to the audiobook, can be visualized by descriptions he repeats throughout the story.  Holling wants some cream puffs and every time they are described or mentioned in the book, Schmidt uses the same descriptors every time; brown, light, perfect cream puffs.

Notable awards and reviews:

"Schmidt...makes the implausible believable and the everyday momentous...a gentle, hopeful, moving story." --Booklist

"Schmidt rises above the novel's conventions to create memorable and believable characters." --Horn Book

2008 Newbery Honor Book

This book is great for a fictional story taking place during the Vietnam War.  It can be tied into a social studies lesson about the Vietnam War. 

Other books by Gary D. Schmidt include:

·         Mara's Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness (2008)

·         Trouble (2008)

·         First Boy (2005)

·         Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004)

·         A Passionate Usefulness: The Life and Literary Labors of Hannah Adams (2004)

·         The Wonders of Donal O'Donnell (2002)

·         Straw Into Gold (2001)