By Bob Tedder • For the past several years I’ve peripherally participated in North Carolina’s annual Middle School Battle of the Books. As a result, I’m exposed to and read 25-27 young adult-themed books per annum. I’m here to tell you that, amidst the dross in this particular literary vein, an adult reader may find nuggets of pure, unrefined gold. Gary D. Schimdt’s “The Wednesday Wars,” on at least three levels, is unadulterated 24-karat bling. It’s a tripartite jewel that is serious, familiar and funny.
Ostensibly seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood’s life is destroyed by circumstances that force him to be only student every Wednesday afternoon of Mrs. Baker, the evil sentence-diagramming English teacher. Set in 1967-68 the book depicts the serious underpinnings of the time. The Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite intoning causality figures and both the Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations serve as somber reminders of Holling’s formative years.
For those not old enough to remember the above events the ring of familiarity will surely register on the those who can recall television’s “The Wonder Years.” Holling, like his equally fictitious small-screen doppelganger Kevin Arnold, must face the coming of age hurdles unique to this generation of children. For example, they both have older sisters who try to find themselves while listening to rock music and serving as banes to both brother and parents alike.
However, besides placing both the serious and the familiar in seamless narrative companionship, the author did what few other authors have done. He literally made me laugh out loud. Much of the mirth derives from Holling’s growing appreciation of the Shakespeare forced upon him by the malevolent Mrs. Baker. With the speed only seventh-grade boys can muster, he soon has Caliban’s curses entering the school’s vocabulary. It is the rare reader indeed who cannot smile when an obviously irritated gym teacher storms into Mrs. Baker’s classroom demanding the definition of “pied ninny.” For all past, present and future seventh-grade sinners or saints, “The Wednesday Wars” must not be missed.