Wednesday Wars

Wednesday Wars
by
Gary Schmidt
(This author has won the Newbery Honor award and the Printz Honor award)
young adult fiction


Holling is growing up in Long Island in 1967. He is a Protestant 7th grader in a class full of Catholics and Jews. On Wednesday afternoons the Jewish and Catholic kids all leave for Wednesday religious classes. Holling is the only one left in Mrs. Baker's English class. She has him takes on assignments reading Shakespeare. He is reluctant, but at first learns to love Shakespeare's curses and uses them under his breath. As time goes by he appreciates more about Shakespeare, even acting in a play.
Since he is in 7th grade, he is learning a lot about himself and who he wants to be. His older sister is a flower child. His father wants Holling to be an architect like he is. Holling doesn't know what he wants, but a girlfriend would be nice!
A colleague of mine recommended this book and said that it should have won the Newbery award instead of getting runner-up status.
This is the kind of book that English teachers and librarians love to recommend, but children don't always want to read. The year 1967 is before today's 7th graders were born, and even before many of their parents were born, so this book may need some "selling" on the part of adults getting students to read it.
Once they do crack this book open, however, they will find that some thinks about 7th grade remain the same - the jokester in class, the awkwardness, the "what-if" of early adolescence, and more. In constrast, some aspects of this book are very 1967 - hippies, atomic bomb drills, and the Vietnam conflict. I can see that an essay would compare and contrast 1967's hippies with today's Goths, atomic bomb drills with today's lockdowns, and the Vietnam conflict with today's Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dayton Peace Prize

Dayton Peace Prize
http://www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org/

Congratulations to Geraldine Brooks, winner of the 2010 Dayton Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award

Here is a full list of 2010 finalists:


2010 Dayton Literary
Peace Prize Finalists

Fiction

* A Postcard from the Volcano by Lucy Beckett (Ignatius Press):

Beginning in 1914 and ending on the eve of World War II, this epic coming-of-age story follows a Prussian aristocrat as he confronts the ideologies that threaten the annihilation of millions of people.


* A Good Fall by Ha Jin (Pantheon Books):

In this stark and insightful collection, acclaimed writer Ha Jin depicts the struggle of Chinese immigrants in America to remain loyal to their traditions as they explore the freedom that life in a new country offers.


* Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Knopf):

A young Ethiopian doctor is forced to flee revolution in his homeland for New York City in this enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home.


* The Book of Night Women by Marlon James (Penguin Group; G. P. Putham's Sons/Riverhead Books):

Born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century, a woman with dark, mysterious powers finds herself at the heart of a slave revolt plotted by the women around her.


* The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim (Henry Holt and Company):

In early-twentieth-century Korea, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher struggles to choose her own destiny while her country crumbles under Japanese occupation.


* The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Adiche (Knopf):

Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie turns her penetrating eye on both her native country and America in twelve dazzling stories that explore the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.



Nonfiction

* Enough: Why the Worlds Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman (Public Affairs):

This powerful investigative narrative shows exactly how, in the past few decades, American, British, and European policies have conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself.


* In the Valley of the Mist by Justine Hardy (Free Press):

A personal, moving, and vibrant picture of the Kashmir Valley, one of the most beautiful and troubled places in the world -- described through the experiences of one family, whose fortunes have changed dramatically with those of the region.


* Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson (Penguin Group, USA):

From the author of the #1 bestseller Three Cups of Tea, the continuing story of this determined humanitarian’s efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan through education.


* Tears in the Darkness by Michael and Elizabeth Norman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux):

Using the perspective of a young American soldier, this account of World War II’s Bataan death march exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides.


* The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe (Knopf):

From the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart, a new collection of autobiographical essays—his first new book in more than twenty years.


* Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's):

The meticulously researched story of a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four who chose to stay in New Orleans through Hurricane Katrina and protect his house and business—but then abruptly disappeared.