Gary D. Schmidt, my new hero, has a way with words.  I laughed and I cried reading The Wednesday Wars.  Not a comedy, but still funny in bursts that made me thankful I was reading alone so no one could hear the uncontrollable snorts that exploded as the humor caught me suddenly.  And I cried, not in sobs, but in a constantly leaky sort of way.  I leaked and snorted at the same time, actually, toward the end.

Gary D. Schmidt has a way with words.  He has a way with Shakespeare’s words in The Wednesday Wars that makes me sorry I don’t know more Shakespeare.  Schmidt obviously knows enough to subtly build a narrative around it, weaving in quotes that are unexpectedly relevant. 

The setting is Camillo Junior High, Long Island, New York in 1967:  diagramming sentences, the first “bubble tests”, coat rooms, the Monkees, the Beatles, VW Bugs, flower power, nuclear bomb drills, the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite, Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.  I loved the setting.  I lived the setting.  But while the setting is strong, it isn’t the true strength of this novel.

The strength of The Wednesday Wars is the character.  The characters themselves are clear and strong – Holling- the hero (and the lone Presbyterian stuck at school every Wednesday while the Jewish and Catholic kids go to religious school), Mrs. Baker the teacher (who hates Holling and is stuck with him each Wednesday), Doug Swieteck and his brother the bullies, Danny Hupfer the best friend, and an incredible supporting cast.  But more than the characters, it is THE character of the book that is pillar.  Each character surprises you with unexpected depth.  Strength and hope and wisdom and faith rise a bit higher with each round of challenges and disasters. 

An honor book is not enough – The Wednesday Wars should have won the Newbery!

I’ve told you everything… and nothing about this wonderful work.  Like First Light, I want you to read it for yourself.  And I want you to recommend it to students again, and again.  The Wednesday Wars is about drawing together … and rising above in faith and hope and love.  Yes, we can!