The Wednesday Wars–by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D.  The Wednesday Wars.  New York: Clarion Books, 2007.

When Holling Hoodhood starts seventh grade, he quickly finds that a bizarre coincidence is going to leave him alone with his homeroom teacher every Wednesday afternoon, and his teacher is not happy about it.  So Holling looks for help.  But help’s not coming from anyone–least of all from his father, whose chief concern about what happens to his kids seems to be whether it will affect a business deal of his…

“‘Dad, Mrs. Baker hates my guts.’

“‘What did you do?’

“‘I didn’t do anything.  She just hates my guts.’

“‘People don’t just hate your guts unless you do something to them.  So what did you do?’

“‘Nothing.’

“‘This is Betty Baker, right?’

“‘I guess.’

“‘The Betty Baker who belongs to the Baker family.’

“…’I guess she belongs to the Baker family,’ I said.

“‘The Baker family that owns the Baker Sporting Emporium.’

“‘Dad, she hates my guts.’

“The Baker Sporting Emporium, which is about to choose an architect for its new building and which is considering Hoodhood and Associates among its top three choices.’

“‘Dad…’

“So, Holling, what did you do that might make Mrs. Baker hate your guts, which will make other Baker family members hate the name of Hoodhood, which will lead the Baker Sporting Emporium to choose another architect, which will kill the deal for Hoodhood and Associates, which will drive us into bankruptcy, which will encourage several lending institutions around the state to send representatives to our front stoop holding papers that have lots of legal words on them–none of them good–and which will mean that there will be no Hoodhood and Associates for you to take over when I’m ready to retire?’

“…’I guess things aren’t so bad,’ I said.

“‘Keep them that way,’ he said.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for in an ally.” (p. 7-8 )

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy–by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D.  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.  New York: Clarion Books, 2004.

“Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for fifteen minutes shy of six hours.  He had dipped his hand in its waves and licked the salt from his fingers.  He had smelled the sharp resin of the pines.  He had heard the low rhythm of the bells on the buoys that balanced on the ridges of the sea.  He had seen the fine clapboard parsonage beside the church where he was to live, and the small house set a ways beyond it that puzzled him some.  Turner Buckminster had lived in Phippsburg, Maine, for almost six whole hours.  He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it.” (p. 1)

In some places, being the son of a minister is no big deal.  Phippsburg, Maine, is not one of them.  Everybody is constantly scrutinizing Turner to see if he is upright enough, moral enough, brave enough, polite enough, and even whether his shirt is starched-white enough.  So far, he is a miserable failure.

And things only get worse after those first six hours.  Within two days of his arrival in Phippsburg, he has become the laughingstock of the whole town for his failure at playing baseball, been teased mercilessly as a coward for not jumping off a huge cliff into the ocean, and gotten caught skipping rocks across water that just happened to bump into somebody’s old fence.  Before he can blink, he is sentenced to spend his summer reading and playing organ for a repulsive old woman who yells at him, helps spread the rumors about him, looks and smells funny, and is absolutely obsessed with her own death and making sure her last words will be written down.  He’d just as soon die.

But then he meets Lizzie, an island girl who can row a boat, play baseball like nothing else, dig clams, and speak to whales.  And that changes everything forever.