The Wednesday Wars

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt.  Scholastic Audio Books, 2007
As an author, it must be a tricky thing to listen to the audiobook of your work.  You've labored over the voice, the tone, the dialogue, the...the...ellipses.  To hear another voice reading the story could be so odd. 

Then, what if it all goes horribly off track? What if the bright folks at Corporate Audiobook Inc. get it completely wrong?  What if the narrator doesn't work or is a complete mismatch and they bungle the rhythm and dialogue the author so carefully crafted?

Well, I hope Gary D. Schmidt was happy with Joel Johnstone because, it seems to me that Johnstone understood every word, every syllable and even the spaces BETWEEN the words of this Newbery honor book.  

I listen to a lot of audiobooks.  Some are enjoyable, some are bearable and some are un-listenable.    Scholastic Audio has produced a performance here that seems as close to a perfect melding of story and narrator as I have ever heard.

Oh, to hear Johnstone voice the teacher, Mrs. Baker  as she addresses Holling Hoodhood, with her crystalline:  "Mr. Hoodhood" or to experience Holling's lament of  the placement of the feathers on his costume for The Tempest -- these are moments I will long remember. 

  
I was  a seventh grader during the school year of 1967-68 and could,  totally identify with Holling's "still-too-young-to-fully-appreciate the-times-that-were-a-changing-but-old-enough-to-understand-that-something-was-happening-here"  state of mind.  Author, Gary Schmidt got that part exactly right.

I remember when classrooms had windows that opened, a concept that seem long ago and far away now.  I DO remember when a teacher, like Mrs. Baker,  could cross her arms in such a way that the class WOULD fall silent immediately. 

The Wednesday Wars  is a novel with characters so real  and authentic that I found myself missing them between listens.  This book is a celebration of teaching and learning and what students learn from dedicated teachers and what teachers learn from dedicated students.

While all the Jewish and Roman Catholic kids in his class are at religious instruction on Wednesday afternoon, Holling Hoodhood, a Presbyterian, is the only student left at school.  His teacher, Mrs. Baker must also stay, as a result.  Holling is sure she hates him for it.   As Mrs. Baker and Holling embark on a study of Shakespeare on these Wednesdays,  he finds more connections than he could have ever guessed, between his life and the words of the Bard.   He also gains insight into the life of his teacher whose husband is fighting in Vietnam.  

Gary Schmidt is a very clever writer.   I burst out loud laughing as Holling attempts to navigate seventh grade in spite of accidents, death threats, deadly rats, diagrammed sentences, a flower-child older sister and a distant and opportunistic father. 

Glorious story, brilliant audiobook.

I am not sure how many kids have discovered this book. Classroom windows do not open anymore in my corner of the world, but the humor, the quandaries and vagueries of junior high school life are still spot on.  

Memo to self:  Must booktalk this title. 

The Hobart Shakespeareans

The Hobart Shakespeareans, 52 minutes, New Video Group, 2006

I said, "The Hobart Shakespeareans are the stuff of legends. Their annual play must be something to behold."

I finished reading Rafe Esquith's Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire last month. While talking about the book over lunch recently, some teaching colleagues told me they had seen this student group at a convention and had t-shirts signed by all the kids. I was so jealous.

The Hobart Shakespeareans was originally a documentary on the PBS POV program.
It is really quite amazing to watch what Rafe Esquith does in his 5th grade classroom with kids from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The kids begin their day early (long before the official start of the school day) and attend on a year-round schedule. The classroom motto is "No Shortcuts." Esquith admonishes some kids who have been sharing answers in a straight forward manner.

They work on the play after school.

The interviews with the students themselves are enlightening. One boy recalls his fourth grade teacher's impatience with his inability to understand certain points and contrasts Esquith's willingness to explain and reteach it over and over again. The kids call him "Rafe" not "Mr. Esquith."

Living in a school district where To Kill a Mockingbird, Huck Finn and Shakespeare are not taught until high school, I can hear the question about matching these works with fifth graders but Esquith knows his kids may never make it to high school and he is determined to touch their lives with this literature. Watching tears roll down the cheeks of kids who are moved by the lines of Shakespeare or the predicament of Huck Finn made me a believer.

College pennants from Yale, Harvard, USC, UCLA cover the walls of the classroom as proof of what his former students have achieved and as encouragement for his current students. Esquith's attitude and classroom personae are uplifting but he is realistic. While talking to a group of teachers in Houston, he discusses "No Child Left Behind" and the effort that is required from the kids, themselves, and the fact that some of them are unwilling or unable to give that effort.

Classroom visits from Michael York and Ian McKellen have the students rapt and wide-eyed. I loved hearing York tell the kids that in Shakespeare's time an audience attended a performance to "hear" a play, NOT "see" a play.

If you are connected to schools as a teacher, an administrator, or as a parent, you must see this program.

Just get it.

Inspirational Teaching

Whether you are a teacher die-cutting letters for your bulletin board or a parent gearing up for another year of fun in the classroom, do not miss Mental Multivitamin's post "Teach, damn it." She has put together a short but sweet list of books, full of teaching inspiration for the new school year.


My brother, Principal Blandsworth, told me he had read Rafe Esquith's excellent Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire this summer and recommended it highly. If MMV and Principal Blandsworth recommend it, it has to be good.