dear katy anderson,

RE: Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt

this book was like a date where you watch a ward talent show and then get ice cream and it’s all warm and summer outside and then you find out that your 7^th grade teacher’s husband is MIA in veitnam. but then you go get more ice cream and you don’t even get sick.

i.e. it was good. and mostly happy- which is rare. it paints a pretty accurate picture of seventh grade life- which apparently hasn't changed much from 1967. i especially appreciated the way in which the main character - a nice presbyterian boy named holling - responded to all of the world changing events that happened in the sixties... he noticed them, and knew they were bad but still went on worrying about embarrassing pictures of himself in the town newspaper and cream puffs. that is how it really is because what can you do? you are in seventh grade.

here are some quotes (from shortest to longest) :

“‘we are coming apart,’ my father said'”

“people like to think that if they’re prepared, nothing bad can really happen”

“learn to diagram sentences. It’s rude to roll your eyes. learn everything you can-everything and then use all that you have learned to grow up to be a wise and good man. that is the first thing”

“in the real world , people fall out of love little by little, not all at once. they stop looking at each other. they stop talking. they stop serving lima beans. after walter cronkite is finished, one of them goes for a ride in a ford mustang and the other goes upstairs to the bedroom. And there is a lot of quiet in the house. And late at night, the sounds of sadness creep underneath the bedroom doors and along the dark halls “

Cried: 4

Laughed audibly: 5