Tuesday, June 01, 2010

A Good Dose of Laughter

Today was just one of those days. Yep. Just one of those days. (And that's all I'm gonna say about that...)

When I have a day like this one, I sometimes just need some laughter. So I asked my husband if we could read for a while.

Just a few nights ago, we started reading Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars. Actually I've read it before, but as is the case with many books I truly love, I eventually get around to reading it aloud to my dear D. I remembered it was funny, but I had forgotten just how funny: laugh-aloud, sometimes too choked up to read kind of funny, at least in parts.

If you haven't read this Newbery Honor winning book, I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend it so much that I'm going to do something I rarely do, and quote from my own review, which I penned back in 2008:

"Holling Hoodhood is pretty sure that seventh grade is not going to be a banner year for him. That's because he's convinced from Day One that his teacher, Mrs. Baker, must hate him.

Every Wednesday, half of his class heads to Hebrew School while the other half heads to Catechism Class. But Holling, the only Presbyterian in a sea of Jewish and Catholic classmates, has no where to go. That means that Mrs. Baker must keep him in her classroom, a time-wasting prospect that both of them look forward to with gritted teeth.

But after Holling has cleaned every eraser in Camillo Junior High...and after he has accidentally let escape the class's pet rats while cleaning their cages...Mrs. Baker (perhaps a bit unnerved by the escape of the rodents) hits upon the perfect solution.

Holling is going to read Shakespeare. Every Wednesday. Sometimes with Mrs. Baker. And she is going to quiz him about it, to make sure he has done the reading and to make sure that he understands it. Until he's read a few plays and showed his mettle, at which point she begins to make him write full-blown essays.

Did I mention that seventh grade is not turning out to be a banner year for Holling?"


I hope that little intro might make you want to read the rest of the review, but most of all I hope it makes you want to read the book. Especially if you need a dose of laughter too.

2 comments:

Erin said...

I could definitely use a dose of laughter! I've read lots of Newberys but never that one. I'll be taking a peek at the library soon!

Beth said...

Oh, it's a great one. The tone takes a bit of getting used to at first, because the humor is very over-the-top, but once you fall into it, it's just delightful. And he manages to pull some of the oddest things together in very satisfying ways in the final chapters!