The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

From Barnes & Noble

While all his classmates are enjoying (?) religious instruction, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood shares Wednesday afternoons with Mrs. Baker, his Camillo Junior High teacher. Not surprisingly, Holling lacks enthusiasm for mid-week appointments with an instructor who assigns him Shakespeare as out-of-class reading. Holling has other things on his mind besides English Renaissance drama. For his dad's sake, he's trying hard to stay out of trouble, but with hovering bullies and other impinging crises, that seems to be a full-time job. Fortunately, help arrives from an unexpected source. Another funny yet gripping novel from the author of Lizzie Bright and The Buckminster Boy.

From the Publisher

Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero in THE WEDNESDAY WARS—a wonderfully witty and compelling novel about a teenage boy's mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year.

Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn't like Holling—he's sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation—the Big M—in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself.

The New York Times - Tanya Lee Stone

There are many strands in this story: the Vietnam War, air raid drills, missing soldiers, a classmate who is a Vietnamese refugee, a rescue, extreme humiliation, chalk-covered cream puffs, yellow tights with feathers in all the wrong places and a bully. In fact, so much happens I wondered whether all the seeds Schmidt planted could flower by the end. To his great credit, they do. Still, while The Wednesday Wars was one of my favorite books of the year, it wasn't written for me. Sometimes books that speak to adults miss the mark for their intended audience. To see if the novel would resonate as deeply with a child, I gave it to an avid but discriminating 10-year-old reader. His laughter, followed by repeated outbursts of "Listen to this!," answered my question.

Publishers Weekly

Johnstone brings to life one of the most endearing characters to come along in some time. Holling Hoodhood is starting seventh grade in 1967. It is a time of change, not just for Holling as he begins his journey into adolescence, but for the world around him as well. The war in Vietnam is raging and the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy hang heavy on the American consciousness by the end of the school year. And for Holling, the world of nascent relationships lies before him, not to mention, baseball, camping and the constant excitement, wonder and terror of being 11 at such a volatile time.

Johnstone's first-person narration perfectly captures Holling's progression from an angst-filled yet innocent boy, to a wiser, self-aware young man. His reading is touching, funny and insightful; he manages to bring the listener back to a time-real or nostalgically re-imagined, at least-when the crack of a bat against a ball in Yankee Stadium or sharing a Coke with a girl at the Woolworth's counter was all any boy could want. This is a lovely, heartfelt novel, read with as much care as the author used to create it. Ages 10-up. (June)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Children's Literature

Seventh grader, Holling Hoodhood is convinced that his teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates him. After all, her folded arms and eyes that roll with unspoken sarcasm offer ample proof, right? When Holling, the lone Presbyterian, is left in the empty classroom on Wednesday afternoons as the other Jews and Catholics are bussed to religious instruction, real vengeance begins. Mrs. Baker requires Holling to read Shakespeare, not only in class, but aloud with her, and at home for discussion the following week. This bittersweet novel set during the days of the Vietnam conflict, peace marches, racial protests, and flower children rivals the immortal Bard for tragedy and comedy. Holling narrates, as readers assimilate the 60s, developing a fresh appreciation for a country at war from the voice of a memorable hero who is battling to discover himself. Schmidt, an award-winning author in his own right, combines the student-teacher relationships reminiscent of Andrew Clements' Frindle with the angst of the middle school individualist depicted in Sue Stauffacher's Donuthead, with original flare, unfolding the past at the pace of the present. This story interweaves the issues of the period with grace and power, resulting in historical fiction both entertaining and endearing. Awards predicted.

VOYA

Seventh grader Holling Hoodhood lives in the Long Island suburbs in the Perfect House with his less-than-perfect, architect father, his subservient mother, and his flower-child sister. On Wednesday afternoon, half of his class leaves for Hebrew School at Temple Beth-El while the other half goes to catechism. Holling is the lone Presbyterian so he stays behind with his teacher, Ms. Baker, whom Holling knows hates him. She introduces him to the plays of William Shakespeare, an assignment that Holling assumes is punishment but which actually enhances his life. There is a lot going on in this novel not all related to the politics of the turbulent 1960s. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and the unpopular Vietnam War play a part in Holling's seventh grade year but so do two rats, Sycorax and Calliban, with their clacking yellow teeth; a part as Ariel in yellow tights; a track team; bullying and racism; a camping trip; and disappointment in a first love. Ms. Baker gently guides him through everything even as she brokenheartedly deals with the news that her husband is MIA. This novel is funny, warm, sad, and touching all at the same time. Holling Hoodhood will live with the reader for a very long time after he finishes seventh grade and learns "to thine self be true."

KLIATT

The year is 1967, and on Wednesday afternoons in Holling's Long Island, NY 7th-grade class, all the Catholic students go to Catechism, while all the Jewish students go to Hebrew school—leaving Holling, the only Presbyterian, alone with his teacher each week. He's convinced Mrs. Baker hates him: she has him reading Shakespeare, after all. Which leads to his role as Ariel in a community production of The Tempest and to possibly the most embarrassing newspaper photo of all time, of Holling in yellow tights with feathers on the rear, which of course is posted all over the school. Other amusing incidents involve rats gone AWOL, an encounter with Mickey Mantle, and joining the track team. But as wise Mrs. Baker notes, "Comedies are much more than funny," and this wonderful novel about the miseries and miracles of Holling's 12th year offers more than just belly laughs. The Vietnam War is a backdrop to life at Camillo Junior High: a Vietnamese orphan is in their class, while Mrs. Baker's soldier husband is missing in action. Holling's 16-year-old sister dreams of being a flower child and runs away, and Holling must come to her rescue. Acclaimed author Schmidt's warmth and understanding shine through on every page, along with his humor (one boy can "cuss the yellow off a school bus") and his gift for creating memorable characters: he may remind readers of Jerry Spinelli or Richard Peck. Not to be missed—this is a marvelous read, both achingly funny and deeply affecting.

Kirkus Reviews

It's 1967, and on Wednesdays, every Jewish kid in Holling Hoodhood's class goes to Hebrew School, and every Catholic kid goes to Catechism. Holling is Presbyterian, which means that he and Mrs. Baker are alone together every Wednesday-and she hates it just as much as he does. What unfolds is a year of Wednesday Shakespeare study, which, says Mrs. Baker, "is never boring to the true soul." Holling is dubious, but trapped. Schmidt plaits world events into the drama being played out at Camillo Junior High School, as well as plenty of comedy, as Holling and Mrs. Baker work their way from open hostility to a sweetly realized friendship. Holling navigates the multitudinous snares set for seventh-graders-parental expectations, sisters, bullies, girls-with wry wit and the knowledge that the world will always be a step or two ahead of him. Schmidt has a way of getting to the emotional heart of every scene without overstatement, allowing the reader and Holling to understand the great truths swirling around them on their own terms. It's another virtuoso turn by the author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2005). (Fiction. 10-14)

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

September

Of 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.
And let me tell you, it wasn't for
anything I'd done.
If it had been Doug Swieteck that Mrs.
Baker hated, it would have made sense.
Doug Swieteck once made up a list of 410
ways to get a teacher to hate you. It
began with "Spray deodorant in all her
desk drawers" and got worse as it went
along. A whole lot worse. I think that
things became illegal around Number 167.
You don't want to know what Number 400
was, and you really don't want to know
what Number 410 was. But I'll tell you
this much: They were the kinds of things
that sent kids to juvenile detention
homes in upstate New York, so far away
that you never saw them again.
Doug Swieteck tried Number 6 on Mrs.
Sidman last year. It was something about
Wrigley gum and the teachers' water
fountain (which was just outside the
teachers' lounge) and the Polynesian
Fruit Blend hair coloring that Mrs.
Sidman used. It worked, and streams of
juice the color of mangoes stained her
face for the rest of the day, and the
next day, and the next day—until, I
suppose, those skin cells wore off.
Doug Swieteck was suspended for two
whole weeks. Just before he left, he
said that next year he was going to try
Number 166 to see how much time that
would get him.
The day before Doug Swieteck came back,
our principal reported during Morning
Announcements that Mrs. Sidman had
accepted "voluntary reassignmentto the
Main Administrative Office." We were all
supposed to congratulate her on the new
post. But it was hard to congratulate
her because she almost never peeked out
of the Main Administrative Office. Even
when she had to be the playground
monitor during recess, she mostly kept
away from us. If you did get close,
she'd whip out a plastic rain hat and
pull it on.
It's hard to congratulate someone who's
holding a plastic rain hat over her
Polynesian Fruit Blend–colored hair.
See? That's the kind of stuff that gets
teachers to hate you.
But the thing was, I never did any of
that stuff. Never. I even stayed as far
away from Doug Swieteck as I could, so
if he did decide to try Number 166 on
anyone, I wouldn't get blamed for
standing nearby.
But it didn't matter. Mrs. Baker hated
me. She hated me a whole lot worse than
Mrs. Sidman hated Doug Swieteck.
I knew it on Monday, the first day of
seventh grade, when she called the class
roll—which told you not only who was in
the class but also where everyone lived.
If your last name ended in "berg" or
"zog" or "stein," you lived on the north
side. If your last name ended in "elli"
or "ini" or "o," you lived on the south
side. Lee Avenue cut right between them,
and if you walked out of Camillo Junior
High and followed Lee Avenue across Main
Street, past MacClean's Drug Store,
Goldman's Best Bakery, and the Five &
Ten-Cent Store, through another block
and past the Free Public Library, and
down one more block, you'd come to my
house—which my father had figured out
was right smack in the middle of town.
Not on the north side. Not on the south
side. Just somewhere in between. "It's
the Perfect House," he said.
But perfect or not, it was hard living
in between. On Saturday morning,
everyone north of us was at Temple
Beth-El. Late on Saturday afternoon,
everyone south of us was at mass at
Saint Adelbert's—which had gone modern
and figured that it didn't need to wake
parishioners up early. But on Sunday
morning—early—my family was at Saint
Andrew Presbyterian Church listening to
Pastor McClellan, who was old enough to
have known Moses. This meant that out of
the whole weekend there was only Sunday
afternoon left over for full baseball teams.
This hadn't been too much of a disaster
up until now. But last summer, Ben
Cummings moved to Connecticut so his
father could work in Groton, and Ian
MacAlister moved to Biloxi so his
father could be a chaplain at the base
there instead of the pastor at Saint
Andrew's—which is why we ended up with
Pastor McClellan, who could have called
Isaiah a personal friend, too.
So being a Presbyterian was now a
disaster. Especially on Wednesday
afternoons when, at 1:45 sharp, half of
my class went to Hebrew School at Temple
Beth-El, and, at 1:55, the other half
went to Catechism at Saint Adelbert's.
This left behind just the
Presbyterians—of which there had been
three, and now there was one.
Me.
I think Mrs. Baker suspected this when
she came to my name on the class roll.
Her voice got kind of crackly, like
there was a secret code in the static
underneath it.
"Holling Hoodhood," she said.
"Here." I raised my hand.
"Hoodhood."
"Yes."
Mrs. Baker sat on the edge of her desk.
This should have sent me some kind of
message, since teachers aren't supposed
to sit on the edge of their desks on the
first day of classes. There's a rule
about that.
"Hoodhood," she said quietly. She
thought for a moment. "Does your family
attend Temple Beth-El?" she said.
I shook my head.
"Saint Adelbert's, then?" She asked
this kind of hopefully.
I shook my head again.
"So on Wednesday afternoon you attend
neither Hebrew School nor Catechism."
I nodded.
"You are here with me."
"I guess," I said.
Mrs. Baker looked hard at me. I think
she rolled her eyes. "Since the
mutilation of "to guess" into an
intransitive verb is a crime against the
language, perhaps you might wish a full
sentence to avoid prosecution-—something
such as, 'I guess that Wednesday
afternoons will be busy after all.'"
That's when I knew that she hated
me. This look came over her face like the
sun had winked out and was not going to
shine again until June.
And probably that's the same look that
came over my face, since I felt the way
you feel just before you throw up—cold
and sweaty at the same time, and your
stomach's doing things that stomachs
aren't supposed to do, and you're
wishing—you're really wishing—that the
ham and cheese and broccoli omelet that
your mother made for you for the first
day of school had been Cheerios, like
you really wanted, because they come up
a whole lot easier, and not yellow.
If Mrs. Baker was feeling like she was
going to throw up too, she didn't show
it. She looked down at the class roll.
"Mai Thi Huong," she called. She looked
up to find Mai Thi's raised hand, and
nodded. But before she looked down, Mrs.
Baker looked at me again, and this time
her eyes really did roll. Then she
looked down again at the roll. "Daniel
Hupfer," she called, and she looked up
to find Danny's raised hand, and then
she turned to look at me again. "Meryl
Lee Kowalski," she called. She found
Meryl Lee's hand, and looked at me
again. She did this every time she
looked up to find somebody's hand. She
was watching me because she hated my guts.

I walked back to the Perfect House
slowly that afternoon. I could always
tell when I got there without looking
up, because the sidewalk changed.
Suddenly, all the cement squares were
perfectly white, and none of them had a
single crack. Not one. This was also
true of the cement squares of the
walkway leading up to the Perfect House,
which were bordered by perfectly
matching azalea bushes, all the same
height, alternating between pink and
white blossoms. The cement squares and
azaleas stopped at the perfect
stoop—three steps, like every other
stoop on the block—and then you're up to
the two-story colonial, with two windows
on each side, and two dormers on the
second floor. It was like every other
house on the block, except neater,
because my father had it painted
perfectly white every other year, except
for the fake aluminum shutters, which
were painted black, and the aluminum
screen door, which gleamed dully and
never, ever squeaked when you opened it.
Inside, I dropped my books on the
stairs. "Mom," I called.
I thought about getting something to
eat. A Twinkie, maybe. Then chocolate
milk that had more chocolate than milk.
And then another Twinkie. After all that
sugar, I figured I'd be able to come up
with something on how to live with Mrs.
Baker for nine months. Either that or I
wouldn't care anymore.
"Mom," I called again.
I walked past the Perfect Living Room,
where no one ever sat because all the
seat cushions were covered in stiff,
clear plastic. You could walk in there
and think that everything was for sale,
it was so perfect. The carpet looked
like it had never been walked on—which
it almost hadn't—and the baby grand by
the window looked like it had never been
played—which it hadn't, since none of us
could. But if anyone had ever walked in
and plinked a key or sniffed the
artificial tropical flowers or
straightened a tie in the gleaming
mirror, they sure would have been
impressed at the perfect life of an
architect from Hoodhood and Associates.
My mother was in the kitchen, fanning
air out the open window and putting out
a cigarette, because I wasn't supposed
to know that she smoked, and if I did
know, I wasn't supposed to say anything,
and I really wasn't supposed to tell my
father.
And that's when it came to me, even
before the Twinkie.
I needed to have an ally in the war
against Mrs. Baker.
"How was your first day?" my
mother said.

"Mom," I said, "Mrs. Baker hates my
guts."
"Mrs. Baker doesn't hate your
guts." She stopped fanning and closed
the window.
"Yes, she does."
"Mrs. Baker hardly knows you."
"Mom, it's not like you have to know
someone well to hate their guts. You
don't sit around and have a long
conversation and then decide whether or
not to hate their guts. You just do. And
she does."
"I'm sure that Mrs. Baker is a fine
person, and she certainly does not hate
your guts."
How do parents get to where they can
say things like this? There must be some
gene that switches on at the birth of
the firstborn child, and suddenly stuff
like that starts to come out of their
mouths. It's like they haven't figured
out that the language you're using is
English and they should be able to
understand what you're saying. Instead,
you pull a string on them, and a bad
record plays.
I guess they can't help it.

Right after supper, I went to the den to
look for a new ally.
"Dad, Mrs. Baker hates my guts."
"Can you see that the television is on
and that I'm watching Walter Cronkite?"
he said.
We listened to Walter Cronkite report
on the new casualty figures from
Vietnam, and how the air war was being
widened, and how two new brigades of the
101st Airborne Division were being sent
over, until CBS finally threw in a
commercial.
"Dad, Mrs. Baker hates my guts."
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. She just hates
my guts."
"People don't just hate your guts
unless you do something to them. So what
did you do?"
"Nothing."
"This is Betty Baker, right?"
"I guess."
"The Betty Baker who belongs to the
Baker family."
See what I mean about that gene thing?
They miss the entire point of what
you're saying.
"I guess she belongs to the Baker
family," I said.
"The Baker family that owns the Baker
Sporting Emporium."
"Dad, she hates my guts."
"The Baker Sporting Emporium, which is
about to choose an architect for its new
building and which is considering
Hoodhood and Associates among its top
three choices."
"Dad . . ."
"So, Holling, what did you do that
might make Mrs. Baker hate your guts,
which will make other Baker family
members hate the name of Hoodhood, which
will lead the Baker Sporting Emporium to
choose another architect, which will
kill the deal for Hoodhood and
Associates, which will drive us into
bankruptcy, which will encourage several
lending institutions around the state to
send representatives to our front stoop
holding papers that have lots of legal
words on them—none of them good—and
which will mean that there will be no
Hoodhood and Associates for you to take
over when I'm ready to retire?"
Even though there wasn't much left of
the ham and cheese and broccoli omelet,
it started to want to come up again.
"I guess things aren't so bad," I said.
"Keep them that way," he said.
This wasn't exactly what I had hoped
for in an ally.

There was only my sister left. To ask
your big sister to be your ally is like
asking Nova Scotia to go into battle
with you.
But I knocked on her door anyway.
Loudly, since the Monkees were playing.
She pulled it open and stood there, her
hands on her hips. Her lipstick was the
color of a new fire engine.
"Mrs. Baker hates my guts," I told her.
"So do I," she said.
"I could use some help with this."
"Ask Mom."
"She says that Mrs. Baker doesn't hate
my guts."
"Ask Dad."
Silence—if you call it silence when the
Monkees are playing.
"Oh," she said. "It might hurt a
business deal, right? So he won't help
the Son Who is Going to Inherit Hoodhood
and Associates."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"If I were you, I'd head to
California," she said.
"Try again."
She leaned against her door. "Mrs.
Baker hates your guts, right?"
I nodded.
"Then, Holling, you might try
getting some."
And she closed her door.

That night, I read Treasure Island
again, and I don't want to brag, but
I've read Treasure Island four times and
Kidnapped twice and The Black Arrow
twice. I even read Ivanhoe halfway
through before I gave up, since I
started The Call of the Wild and it was
a whole lot better. I skipped to the
part where Jim Hawkins is stealing the
Hispaniola and he's up on the mast and
Israel Hands is climbing toward him,
clutching a dagger. Even so, Jim's in
pretty good shape, since he's got two
pistols against a single dagger, and
Israel Hands seems about to give in.
"I'll have to strike, which comes hard,"
he says. I suppose he hates Jim's guts
right at that moment. And Jim smiles,
since he knows he's got him. That's guts.
But then Israel Hands throws the
dagger, and it's just dumb luck that
saves Jim.
And I didn't want to count on just
dumb luck.

Mrs. Baker eyed me all day on Tuesday,
looking like she wanted something awful
to happen—sort of like what Israel Hands
wanted to happen to Jim Hawkins.
It started first thing in the morning,
when I caught her watching me come out
of the Coat Room and walk toward my desk.
By the way, if you're wondering why a
seventh-grade classroom had a Coat Room,
it isn't because we weren't old enough
to have lockers. It's because Camillo
Junior High used to be Camillo
Elementary until the town built a new
Camillo Elementary and attached it to
the old Camillo Elementary by the
kitchen hallway and then made the old
Camillo Elementary into the new Camillo
Junior High. So all the rooms on the
third floor where the seventh grade was
had Coat Rooms. That's where we put our
stuff—even though it was 1967 already,
and we should have had hall lockers,
like every other seventh grade in the
civilized world.
So I caught Mrs. Baker watching me come
out of the Coat Room and walk toward my
desk. She leaned forward, as if she was
looking for something in her desk. It
was creepy.
But just before I sat down, I figured
it out: She'd booby-trapped my desk—like
Captain Flint would have. It all came to
me in a sort of vision, the kind of
thing that Pastor McClellan had
sometimes talked about, how God sends a
message to you just before some
disaster, and if you listen, you stay
alive. But if you don't, you don't.
I looked at my desk. I didn't see any
trip wires, so probably there weren't
any explosives. I checked the screws.
They were all still in, so it wouldn't
fall flat when I sat down.
Maybe there was something inside.
Something terrible inside. Something
really awful inside. Something left over
from the seventh-grade biology labs last
spring.
I looked at Mrs. Baker again. She had
looked away, a half-smile on her lips.
Really. Talk about guilt.
So I asked Meryl Lee Kowalski, who has
been in love with me since she first
laid eyes on me in the third grade—I'm
just saying what she told me—I asked her
to open my desk first.
"How come?" she said. Sometimes even
true love can be suspicious.
"Just because."
"'Just because' isn't much of a
reason."
"Just because there might be a
surprise."
"For who?"
"For you."
"For me?"
"For you."
She lifted the desk top. She looked
under English for You and Me,
Mathematics for You and Me, and
Geography for You and Me. "I don't see
anything," she said.
I looked inside. "Maybe I was wrong."
"Maybe I was wrong," said Meryl Lee,
and dropped the desk top. Loudly. "Oh,"
she said. "Sorry. I was supposed to wait
until you put your fingers there."
Love and hate in seventh grade are not
far apart, let me tell you.

At lunchtime, I was afraid to go out for
recess, since I figured that Mrs. Baker
had probably recruited an eighth-grader
to do something awful to me. There was
Doug Swieteck's brother, for one, who
was already shaving and had been to
three police stations in two states and
who once spent a night in jail. No one
knew what for, but I thought it might be
for something in the Number 390s—or
maybe even Number 410 itself! Doug
Swieteck said that if his father hadn't
bribed the judge, his brother would have
been on Death Row.
We all believed him.
"Why don't you go out for lunch
recess?" said Mrs. Baker to me.
"Everyone else is gone."
I held up English for You and Me. "I
thought I'd read in here," I said.
"Go out for recess," she said, criminal
intent gleaming in her eyes.
"I'm comfortable here."
"Mr. Hoodhood," she said. She stood up
and crossed her arms, and I realized I
was alone in the room with no witnesses
and no mast to climb to get away.
I went out for recess.
I kept a perimeter of about ten feet or
so around me, and stayed in Mrs.
Sidman's line of sight. I almost asked
for her rain hat. You never know what
might come in handy when something awful
is about to happen to you.
Then, as if the Dread Day of Doom and
Disaster had come to Camillo Junior
High, I heard, "Hey, Hoodhood!"
It was Doug Swieteck's brother. He
entered my perimeter.
I took three steps closer to Mrs.
Sidman. She moved away and held her rain
hat firmly.
"Hoodhood—you play soccer? We need
another guy." Doug Swieteck's brother
was moving toward me. The hair on his
chest leaped over the neck of his T-shirt.
"Go ahead," called the helpful Mrs.
Sidman from a distance. "If you don't
play, someone will have to sit out."
If I don't play, I'll live another day,
I thought.
"Hoodhood," said Doug Swieteck's
brother, "you coming or not?"
What could I do? It was like walking
into my own destiny.

Copyright © 2007 by Gary D. Schmidt.
Reprinted by permission of Clarion Books
/ Houghton Mifflin Company.