The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt continued

The second half of this book, in my opinion, is much better and different than the second half. I think Holling develops a much better relationship and understanding of Mrs. baker throughout the last half of the book. Also, Holling starts to grow as an individual as he realizes he can not count on the support of his family. Holling's dad, Mr. Hoodhood, plays an important role in the story because his position as an architect often intersects with Hollings life. initally, in the beginning of the book, it affected the way he intereacted with Mrs. baker and now it affects his realtionship with Meryl Lee. Both of their fathers are architects in the community, working for the same job. Holling gives informaation to Meryl Lee about his dads plans before their big presentation, which casues conflict between him and his dad. Also, Mr. Hoodhood misses the big baseball game and when Heather runs away from home Holling has to go get her without the help of his parents. Holling shows a lot of growth and maturatity throughout this portion of the book.

I think something else important from this portion of the story was the influence of the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. I think Holling realized throughout this half of the book that Mrs. baker is just trying to be a helpful and good teacher. She is doing her best for him and she is not out to get him, or single him out in any way. 

I talked a little bit about how the first half of the book included refrences to world and pop-culture evetns and I think this half of the book continued doing that in a constructive way. i don't think the details were too much that a reader would get lost or not understand what was going on. I think it was clear how some of the large events were impacting the story and the characters, for example, Mrs. barker was worried about her husband who was fighting in the Vietnam War.

Overall, I really liked this book. I think it is appropriate and would be more greatly appreciated by older students. probably in middle-school. I think students this age would be able to connect more the events, relationships and feelings the characters have throughout the story.