The Wednesday Wars

     Wednesday Wars. There are so many things I thought of when I read this title. I thought that there was going to be a war between schools or teachers. I did not expect the type of experiences and stories that I am getting when reading this book.

      Wednesday Wars is about a middle school boy named Holling Hoodhood. I know weird name and they have not really said what the meaning of the name is or even if there is a meaning. But Holling is a Presbyterian, so he does not get to leave school for church on Wednesday. He gets stuck staying with his teacher that he believes is out to get him. She even makes him read Shakespeare.  To me that does not sound fun at all, but Holling is really into it. At first Holling is against read the book, but he has to because his father is trying to get a contract to build a building for Holling’s teachers family. I should probably tell you the teachers name, her name is Mrs. Baker. Even though Holling believes that Mrs. Baker is mean and is out to get him, the truth is she is really nice and wants the best for her students.

There are some great stories that Holling tells, like the time the rats got lose and him and Mrs. Baker had to stand on the desk. There was also the time where Holling was clapping out some chalk board erasers and the chalk floated in to the classroom and got all over the pastries. I think my favorite one was Holling getting in to a Shakespeare play and playing a fairy. Holling wanted nothing to do with the play after he got the part of the fairy, but did it because he needed money for pastries for his class. These stories make you smile because so many things go wrong for Holling, but even though Holling thinks that Mrs. Baker is out to get him, she is the one that helps him out the most.

I do not know a lot about the Vietnam war, so even for me it would be great to talk about or look up. I would use the fact that the Vietnam war was talked about to turn it into a chance to talk about a part of history. I would turn it into a teaching point about how certain people were treated. In the book, there is a little girl named Mai Thi, she is not treated very well by one of the cooks. When all the other students got hot chocolate, Mai Thi did not get any because she is from Vietnam. This would be a good time to talk about how we can make others feel like outcast just by small things that we do. You could have one student picked out (make sure to talk to that student beforehand and tell them what you are going to do) and not give them something, and see what the other students say or do. Is there a student that does something or says something about that student not getting what everyone else has? I guess you could talk about Shakespeare, but for elementary students it might be hard to understand the books they are reading in the Wednesday Wars.

The interesting thing about this book is that there are so many different things that deal with parts of history. At first I did not know when this book took place, but then they started talking about the Vietnam war.  

I think that this book is interesting. At first I was not very into the book, but as it went a long I have seen the little important pieces of this book. You get caught up with the characters. I want to know more about Mrs. Baker, I want to find out what happens next to Holling. I think that some students many not be into this book and some it may take a while to get into, but it is a good read (so far).