Summary: The Wednesday Wars By Gary D. Schmidt

Mr. Goldman is an elderly man that has been living in Long Island, New York for a long time. He is a nice and compassionate character that only wants to listen to someone recite Shakespeare and attend plays. He owns Goldman’s Bakery and has owned it for a long time. He runs the shop on his own and doesn’t need any help because he is the only employee. He says, “Why would I need someone to sweep or wash dishes when I have my own hands?” He is a humble man and thinks that he does not deserve any changes.

He seeks to imply that judgement of a person should be based more on the content

A seventh grader whose school is largely divided between Catholics and Jews. But, because Holling is a Presbyterian, he has to stay alone with Mrs. Baker on Wednesdays. Causing him to think that Mrs. Baker hates his guts. During these Wednesday's, Mrs. Baker makes Holling do extra work. Each time, he thinks that she was making him do things because she hated him. First she makes him do physical work, but after a while she has him learning Shakespeare. Games were being played between his dad’s company, Hoodhood and Associates, and other nearby corporations. Holling dislikes the fact that his dad will never care about what he asks if it might have the slightest chance of disrupting a deal. In a short amount of time, Holling starts

“Tomorrow When The War Began” by John Marsden, is a novel of survival, friendship, love and war. He uses many language techniques (e.g. simile, metaphor, personification, oxymoron, irony, symbol, allusion etc.) to get across to the reader the importance of each of the themes discussed. He also uses these techniques to set the mood in each chapter and to help emphasise each major point in the novel. “We’ve learnt a lot and had to figure out what’s important- what matters, what really matters.”- Ellie

Normal life is not an option with a ferocious 30 year war going on, and it is no easier if it takes place on the other side of the world in Vietnam. The Wednesday Wars searches through the ideas of boundaries by using the life of a normal boy, Holling Hoodhood, to show the feelings of growing up in the midst of the Vietnam War. Holling has to learn how to grow up and explore his relationships and ultimately find himself. Throughout the novel The Wednesday Wars, Holling examines the boundaries of war through his experiences with his father, Ms. Baker, and his readings of Shakespeare all develop the theme of comfort, independence, and masks.

In the novel “Tomorrow When the War Began” written by John Marsden, one important idea that was developed throughout the written text was how life events change people. People develop the most during their teenage years which is when they are affected the most during their life.Major life events change people and teenagers need to understand this. In this novel, seven teenagers go camping and when they emerge from the bush there are fires everywhere, the power is out and the animals are dead. The small town of Wirrawee has been invaded by the army. The idea of how life events can change people is shown through the technique of characters. With the events of war, Ellie showed how she grew up and lost her innocence because of the choices she

James M. McPherson sets out to discover what motivated the Confederate and Union soldiers to continue fighting in the Civil War in his book What They Fought For. McPherson analyses nearly a thousand letters, journals, and diary of Union and Confederate soldiers to determine what urged them to fight is this defining American Conflict. McPherson reads and groups together the common thoughts of the everyday soldier, from their letters and journals that none of which had been subjected to any sort of censorship, in that time period. He then generalizes the motivations that they used to fight for their country. Whether it be for slavery or for the Union, the author views both sides of the fighting to analysis their ideological issues, how deep their belief coursed through their veins to continue fighting, and how the soldiers held their convictions close to heart in the time of war.

“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas” -Steve Jobs. Have you ever thought your ideas weren’t exceptional? Have you thought that you could be better by using other’s ideas for guidance? In “The Wednesday Wars,” by Gary D. Schmidt, the protagonist is a boy named Holling Hoodhood. In the novel, it is Valentine’s day and Holling decides to take Meryl Lee (a girl in his class) to the Festival Theater to see “Romeo and Juliet” a play by Shakespeare. Afterwards they go to Woolworth’s, where Holling unintendedly shows Meryl Lee the format of his father’s new school design. If that isn’t worse enough, Meryl Lee is the daughter of Mr. Kowalski, who owns Kowalski and Associates, who also happens to be

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” George Bernard Shaw. Throughout the book “The Wednesday Wars” Mai Thai is bullied and teased and nobody has helped her in any way at all because they all think that she should never be helped with anything. Sooner than she had expected somebody came to her aid, the person that was usually despiteful of her and had never wanted to help her in any case. Mrs.Bigio’s husband died in the vietcong wars because they were surrounded by the soldiers and mowed down by the bullets. That was once the most important reason to hate Mai Thai, but no longer. Although they are two different races they are alike in many other

In the historical fiction novel The Slopes of War by N.A. Perez, the author illustrates the gruesome battle that befell the little market town of Gettysburg during the Civil War through the various perspectives of all the people whom were immersed and affected. These people included young men fighting, generals arguing about their plans and tactics, and innocent citizens who aided causalities regardless of what color their uniform happened to be. Perspectives from both the Confederate and Union armies are offered in the text to grasp a better understanding of all the thoughts occurring throughout the entire battle, as well as before and after. Throughout the novel, Perez elucidates the emotional and physical aspects of war the people endured, such as traumatizing, graphic images that can serve as bad omens, and loss of loved ones. Also, the book further explains what war truly signified, which was death. The positive results and overall effects of the war as described in the novel, however, somewhat outweighs the negative causes and struggles. In the book Crispin written by Avi, there is a particular quote in the novel on the first page in which reads, “In the midst of life comes death, in the midst of death comes life.” This quote can be related to the novel in numerous ways, and can be applied to life in general, too.

I choose the door to my past, open the door to my future, take a deep breath and sleep through to a new life. In the book The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt the protagonist Holling Hoodhood goes on a date with a young lady named Meryl Lee. There fathers are both competing for the same job and both have to present a layout of the new school the next day. During the date Merly Lee was asking Holling about his father's layout so Holling drew it out for her. After the date Merly Lee gave the design to her father he took it and the night before the presentation he redid everything to the exact same draw as Hollings dad. Hollings dad was embarrassed at the presentation and the next day Merly Lee was trying to explain

3885 Final Exam “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. ”-Will Rogers. In the novel The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, the characters are all in a situation where they misdeem people they have yet to know. Countless numbers of these characters did not interpret or understand the significance of construe until they commenced to actualize reality.

Over 150 years, the Civil War had been the bloodiest war in the American history, also known as “The War Between the States” or “Brother Against Brother”, it was fought between the Union or the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. The war lasted four years from 1861 to 1865. What motivated these men to fight and what is the cause of the Civil War is a subject that many historians tried to find out.

After viewing the documentary film ‘The War You Don’t See’ by John Pilger, my previous feelings towards the war and the way people are treated grew more immense as I felt more informed as to what was going on behind closed doors. I have always found the thought of war pointless, destructive and inhumane, this documentary supports my previous attitudes. The way certain media associations manipulate and hide the truth is a scary thought, this film shows how the media lacks honesty on a destructive level. How can one take a position and make an informed decision towards what they should do or how they should react towards these global issues? They can’t, it is impossible to make an informed decision when one is not told the whole truth. ‘The War You Don’t See’ also informs the viewers to see how poorly the innocent civilians are treated and in many cases how their lack of rights results in cruel deaths. Pilger presents these issues to the viewers of this film in a way which looks down upon the people of the military and media and sympathise toward those innocent civilians of these war stricken countries, which I personally strongly support and am left feeling pleased with Pilger’s work.

Death; destruction; crawling, bloody men without jaws; and a child in the middle of it is just a glimpse of the grotesque short narrative “Chickamauga” by Ambrose Bierce. Chickamauga Creek is an area near Chattanooga, Tennessee and northwestern Georgia, plagued by war, suffering, and bloodshed from the Civil War (Bohannon). Bierce served in the Union Army during the American Civil War (Campbell). Many Americans then, and today, romanticize war with glory, heroism, and patriotism. Bierce defied literary status quo, creating graphic accounts of war, in an age of sentimentalism and melodrama (Morris). Lesser publicized were the perspectives, thoughts, and realities of the soldiers after serving and surviving in the civil