The Wednesday Wars-- Gary Schmidt

Warning: spoilers

Don't you just love when you read a quality book? I don't know about you, but I get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside that makes me want to head to the library and check out every book in the same section of the book I just read. This is how The Wednesday Wars was for me.

Set during Vietnam, the writing was so authentic, I honestly thought it was one of those books that was written during that time period and reprinted recently, but I found out that is not the case. This was published in 2007 and never before, which just adds to the talent of the author. The language and "feel" of the characters brought me to a place I've never been. I was in Mrs. Baker's 7th grade English class. I sat in the front row as Holling Hoodhood performed the fairy, Ariel from Shakespeare's The Tempest complete with yellow tights and feathers on the butt.

This coming of age story follows the young Holling Hoodhood, heir to Hoodhood Associates Architecture firm. When 1/2 of his class goes to Catholic religious instruction on Wednesdays and the other half goes to Jewish religious instruction, Holling is stuck alone with his English teacher, Mrs. Baker. After cleaning boards and clapping erasers for the first few weeks, Mrs. Baker decides to challenge the young Mr. Hoodhood, a Presbyterian, with the works of Shakespeare. This convinces Holling that Mrs. Baker hates his guts, which, as we know of all 7th grade English teachers, is true. (I can say that; I used to be one!)

It's through these stories of the Bard that Holling learns life lessons. Of course, sometimes life gives him lessons without the literature. One of the hardest lessons to learn is that sometimes the people we look up to, don't turn out to be who we think they are. Holling learns this lesson the hard way when he rushes from his performance as Ariel the fairy (remember he's wearing yellow tights with white feathers on the butt) to meet Mickey Mantle for an autograph. Arriving just as they are starting to shut things down, he's told by Mantle that Mantle won't sign autographs for anyone wearing tights with white feathers on the butt.

He says on pg 93, "When gods die, they die hard. It's not like they fade away, or grow old, or fall asleep. They die in fire an pain, and when they come out of you, they leave your guts burned. It hurts more than anything you can talk about. And maybe worst of all is, you're not sure if there will ever be another god to fill their place. Or if you'd ever want another god to fill their place. You don't want the fire to go out inside you twice."

Though this, he does learn who his real friends are, for when Danny Hupfer sees what just happened, he returns his signed Mickey Mantle baseball and walks away. If only we all had friends like this.

The reminders of the war in Vietnam, in my opinion speak as a metaphor for the war within Holling, himself. When it describes soldiers mere meters from their destination, hunkered together underground waiting and just out of reach of what would be salvation, it reminds me of those times in life when we come so close, but just don't quite hit the mark. The entire time, Holling is deciding what kind of a son, friend and brother he wants to be. His father wants him to take over the family business, and with his sister being a flower child out trying to find herself, Holling feels the pressure from dad even more. The problem is that he wants and needs to figure things out for himself.

It's a good thing he has Mrs. Baker, who quietly, yet persistently guides Holling through the seventh grade. It is her influence that encourages him when he falls. It is her compassion that brings two other Yankee players to play ball and sign gloves for Holling and his friends. It's her influence that gets him a date with Meryl Lee. It's her encouragement that pushes him to beat the eighth graders at the cross country meet. Mostly, it's her insight and quiet nature that teaches him the lessons of life that he won't realize until years down the road. I have to admit that I felt good inside when Mrs. Baker is rewarded in the end. After all, doesn't someone like her deserve a happy ending?

I loved this story because it made me think of all the Mrs. Bakers out there, all the ones in my life who encouraged me and pushed me to be a better person. So, to Mr. Askin, Mr. Morgante, Mr. Schmitt, and Mrs. Edwards, thank you for your influence in my life. Thank you for pushing me to be more than I thought I could be. Thank you for igniting a passion for learning and hard work. Thank you for being the kind of teachers we all want our children to have.

So, I leave you all with this question: Who is/was your favorite teacher and how did they influence your life?

Next book

Thanks to my good friend, Varsi (Barsi) Peterson, I'm trying something a little different. I will post a blog telling what book is going to be read next. That way you can all get the book, read it and actually have some comments when it comes to discussion time.

So, the next read is Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. By the way, if you live in Sinclairville, don't take the one at the library, I need that one to read first! :)

Sent- - Margaret Peterson Haddix

Warning: spoilers.

Hello again all!

I'm back to book reviews for the time being. My most recent read was Sent By Margaret Peterson Haddix. It's the second in a new series called The Missing. All in all, it was a good book. I'm always impressed when an author can accurately create another time period or in this case an experience with time travel that seems accurate. If I were writing, I'd get all confused with who was supposed to be doing what and how to explain anomalies and the like that it would be an utter mess. This is why I stick with realistic fiction. I can deal with real.

Haddix does a fantastic job of portraying the 1400s. Her use of the characters that are pulled into the 15th century seems realistic. I especially enjoyed the use of what she calls "tracers." This would be what was originally supposed to happen the first time around in history. Since there are now characters who are essentially messing with time, the reader can often see the tracer doing something different. This ranges from lips moving to different words, to hands coming out of the body in a ghost-like fashion, to the whole tracer (A "copy" of the person) doing something totally different. Haddix's descriptions played easily like a movie in my head. I can see this becoming a teen movie in about 5 years. Not only that, but there is a ton of room for more stories.

In the first book, Found, Jonah, his friend, Chip, and various other children discover that they are stolen children from the past. They don't know who they are, but scientists from the future are now trying to send them back to their original time period so that time won't get screwed up. The problem is that they don't know that they are stolen children and aren't really excited about being shoved back into a time period that they know nothing about, especially ones without Ipods and television and indoor plumbing. Book one ends with Jonah, Katherine (Jonah's sister), Chip and another boy named Alex being sent to the 15th century. Apparently, Chip and Alex are Edward V and his brother Richard. Jonah and Katherine are there by accident and are determined to save Chip and Alex from what is most likely a fatal outcome.

I'll skip the details so you can read it without knowing what's going on, but in the end Jonah and the other kids are back home only to be asked to leave to another time period. Jonah accepts the challenge and is sucked back into who knows when. We still don't know who Jonah really is (in history, anyway) and that is a question that lingers in the back of our minds throughout the whole first and second books. Since there are thirty or so kids who were stolen from time in the first novel, I'm hoping that we don't have to see all thirty stories to see who Jonah is.

For a middle grade book, this is fantastic. If, as you read this, you discover that I seem less than enthusiastic, it's not by any means because of the story itself. It is well written, interesting and complex, yet able to be easily read and understood by middle grade kids. I think my tastes in books has been refining a lot lately, and I need to choose higher YA or adult books. The few middle grade books just don't do it for me any more. I'm sure you'll begin to see those changes in my next few reads. In the mean time, if you have a child in the middle grade age range, especially boys, I'm sure they'd love The Missing series.

I'll leave you at last with a question or two:

1. If you could be anyone in history, who would you like to be?

2. If you could go back in time and change anything, what would it be?