SuitabookThe Wednesday Wars
Gary D. Schmidt
- Reading
- Pause at the Wednesday reading sessions and ask what Holling thinks of Shakespeare and Mrs Baker then; revisit your impressions as his circumstances develop.
- Themes
- Religious instruction and school routine: Holling stays with Mrs Baker on Wednesdays while classmates attend Catechism or Hebrew school. The arrangement sets up a contrast between Holling’s routine and his classmates’ activities; the book’s evaluation of religious instruction is unclear.
- Shakespeare and understanding: Mrs Baker has Holling read Shakespeare’s plays, and he learns about the world he lives in. Literature is part of Holling’s experience of the world, but the particular lessons or the book’s view of the reading are not specified.
- Family expectations and outside pressures: Holling’s father presses him and his sister to behave, with the business’s success at stake; Vietnam is also part of the wider concerns. These pressures form part of Holling’s circumstances, but whether the story endorses or challenges his father’s expectations is unclear.
- Worth knowing
- The story includes a bully making a demand, angry rats, family pressure to behave, and Vietnam as a concern in the background; their intensity and detail are unclear.