From: Ching, Edie <Edie_Ching>
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:58:26 -0500

While the Wednesday Wars may not be a perfect book (and can any of us point to one that might not have a flaw or two) it has certainly resonated with my students at an all boys' school. The author had then hooked with Holling's focus on how much the teacher hated him. Almost all of them were sure that in their short careers they had had a teacher who hated them as well and it was clearly something that drove their lives at the time! (Think of how powerless young kids feel anyway...and then the sense that their teacher, who has almost total control of their lives hates them is really pretty devastating). They thought his family, pretty typical of the time, was a lot like families they know now (maybe the father didn't rely on them to get the contract but many of the parents they know are very career driven and absent emotionally) and the issues of the Vietnam War were new to them, but not the sense of how scarey it is to send someone off to war. I started by reading it a loud and most could not wait to fin d out what happened next. Edie Ching St. Albans School
Received on Sun 30 Dec 2007 01:58:26 PM CST