Gritty Realism In The Wednesday Wars

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The Wednesday Wars is a young adult novel that is amazingly realistic on one hand—and amazingly unbelievable on the other. The realism comes from the skill with which Gary D. Schmidt realizes main character Holling Hoodhood and his sufferings in junior high. The tension between Holling and his teachers, his classmates, and his family is strikingly real, even when he is insisting that one of them is going to kill him. A second theme of gritty realism coursing through the novel is the Vietnam War. Whether it is the fear caused by the war itself—Mrs. Baker’s husband is in combat—or the rebellion that seizes Holling’s sister, Heather, the feel of the period is intensely real. Life is changing for these characters as it changed for many Americans

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