Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

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What Are You Reading?

7 Comments

THE WEDNESDAY WARS by Gary D. Schmidt

The Wednesday Wars

From Booklist:
On Wednesday afternoons, while his Catholic and Jewish schoolmates attend religious instruction, Holling Hoodhood, the only Presbyterian in his seventh grade, is alone in the classroom with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, who Holling is convinced hates his guts. He feels more certain after Mrs. Baker assigns Shakespeare’s plays for Holling to discuss during their shared afternoons. Each month in Holling’s tumultuous seventh-grade year is a chapter in this quietly powerful coming-of-age novel set in suburban Long Island during the late ’60s…Schmidt, whose Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2005) was named both a Printz and a Newbery Honor Book, makes the implausible believable and the everyday momentous.

I’m listening to this as I run errands and after I drop off the kids for carpool. The voice is fabulous. The dialogue snappy. There are yellow tights with feathers, two escapee rats running through the ceiling of Camillo Jr. High, chalk-dusted cream puffs, a track coach who yells, “Faster, you dang wimpy slugs!” Shakespearean curses and a student/teacher relationship that has already made me cry. I wish this book had been available when I was a girl.

Here’s where I am with the 100+ Reading Challenge:

  1. The Gypsies of Spain – Jan Yoors (NF)
  2. If I Stay – Gayle Forman (YA)
  3. Catalyst – Laurie Halse Anderson (YA)
  4. Fat Cat – Robin Brande (YA)
  5. Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Anderson (YA)
  6. Freedom Crossing – Margaret Goff Clark (MG)
  7. The Rights of the Reader – Daniel Pennac (NF)
  8. The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare (YA)
  9. Th1rteen R3asons Why – Jay Asher (YA)  
  10. The Last Treasure – Janet S. Anderson (MG)  
  11. Twisted – Laurie Halse Anderson (YA)  
  12. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell (NF)  
  13. Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell (NF)
  14. Henry and Ribsy – Beverly Cleary (MG)
  15. On the Banks of Plum Creek – Laura Ingalls Wilder (MG)  
  16. Blink – Malcolm Gladwell (NF)  
  17. On Writing – Stephen King (NF)  
  18. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
  19. Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman – Dorothy Sterling (MG)  
  20. Leaving Gee’s Bend – Irene Latham (MG)  
  21. Flash Burnout – LK Madigan (YA)
  22. The Midnight Fox – Betsy Byars (MG)  
  23. The Crimson Cap – Ellen Howard (YA)
  24. Riding Freedom – Pam Munoz Ryan (MG)  
  25. Blessing’s Bead – Debby Dahl Edwardson (YA)
  26. Story of a Girl* – Sara Zarr (YA)
  27. Alabama Moon – Watt Key (YA)
  28. If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period* – Gennifer Choldenko (YA)  
  29. The Long Winter – Laura Ingalls Wilder (MG)  
  30. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
  31. Fog Magic – Julia L. Sauer (MG)  
  32. Ramona the Pest – Beverly Cleary (MG)  
  33. Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson (YA)  
  34. The Ballad of Lucy Whipple – Karen Cushman (MG)
  35. Three Rivers Rising – Jame Richards (YA)  
  36. Four Perfect Pebbles – Lila Perl and Marion Lazan (MG)
  37. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett (MG)
  38. The Dead-Tossed Waves* – Carrie Ryan (YA)
  39. A Wedding in December – Anita Shreve
  40. Luddie’s Life – Cynthia Rylant (YA) novel-in-verse
  41. Aleutian Sparrow – Karen Hesse (MG) novel-in-verse
  42. Love, Hope, and Ivy June – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (MG)
  43. The All-Of-A-Kind Family – Sydney Taylor (MG)  
  44. The Moving Finger – Agatha Christie

* listened on CD

What are you reading right now?

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Filed Under: books and reading

Comments

  1. Natalie Aguirre says

    June 2, 2010 at 10:28 am

    I just finished Gone by Michael Grant. I liked it much more than I thought I would. My daughter read it and recommended it. Also I listened to The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. I really love that series and enjoy listening to books too. I just started City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. I can’t believe I haven’t read it sooner.

    Reply
  2. laurapauling says

    June 2, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    Pretty good list of books. I’m impressed.

    I just read before i fall by Lauren Oliver.

    Reply
  3. Buffy says

    June 2, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    How was The Road? It keeps staring at me from my nightstand, but it looks a bit daunting.

    Reply
  4. Gerbera Daisy Mom says

    June 3, 2010 at 3:44 am

    I absolutely ADORED The Wednesday Wars!! One of my favorite books (juv or adult) thus far this year.
    I just finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and started My Name is Mary Sutter.

    Reply
  5. jenniferw says

    June 4, 2010 at 11:29 pm

    Oh, sorry … I inadvertently put this comment on another post! Apologies. As I was saying … I am reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach and Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found by Jennifer Lauck.

    Reply
  6. Christina Farley says

    June 5, 2010 at 11:16 am

    I’m so impressed with your list! Wednesday Wars sounds like a great book.

    Reply
  7. Shelli (srjohannes) says

    June 6, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    wow! Im reading the arc of matched! 🙂

    Reply

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