The Wednesday Wars: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

Young adult literature loves to target curmudgeon English teachers in its plots, and here is another example. This novel was recommended to me by Alicia Siebers, an English-teaching peer at my own middle school. She read it in a couple of nights; it took me longer. Mrs. Baker is the foil who antagonizes our protagonist, the introspective Holling Hoodhood. Characteristic of Young Adult Literature, the protagonist has a name that can become the gist of jokes and many strange looks and comments. Set in 1967, the Vietnam War is in full bloom. the English tacher's husband is a lieutenant stationed over there, which adds to the rising action in the story. Holling interacts with the teacher; his father-who is very stereotyped as a hippie-hating, government supporting, hard-core conservative who is an architect vying for jobs in a tighly-knit community; a love-interest, or course; and the usual YAL gamut of bizarre incidentals like yellow-toothed rats running loose in the middle school, threats from bullies, and atrocious cafeteria food. All this being said, I enjoyed the book. It is very reawdable (written at a 6th grade level, I would presume), and the story took me back to those days because I was a 7th grader in 1967, too, listening to the horrifying news fromVietnam. Despite the bad press the English teachers gets in this book, she turns out to be okay in the end. And so did the book. I rated this a Three Stars Plus.

The Wednesday Wars" is a well-written novel that offers a nostalgic look at 1960s America. While the story is engaging, I found some of the characters to be a bit one-dimensional

I don't understand why there are so many question marks, mega spaces, and misspelled words. Please edit this book because this is driving me nuts!