#MMGM: More from Gary D. Schmidt

I'm posting this morning with the Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop. The hop is sponsored by  Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle. Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.  

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed Okay For Now, then realized that it's the 2nd (or 3rd) in a loosely connected series starting with The Wednesday Wars. Today  I'm reviewing the other two books: The Wednesday Wars and Just Like That.  I recommend reading them in order, and I recommend not reading my review of Just Like That until after you've finished reading the first book (don't worry--it won't take you long, because it's surprisingly hard to put down).

 

Title: The Wednesday Wars
Author: Gary D. Schmidt
Publication Info: Clarion Books, 2007. 264 pages. 
Source: Library

Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads):
In this Newbery Honor-winning novel, Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero. The Wednesday Wars is a wonderfully witty and compelling story about a teenage boy’s mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year in Long Island, New York.

Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like Holling—he’s sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation—the Big M—in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself.

My Review: 
Holling Hoodhood is a fantastic narrator. He's reliable--so far as his own understanding of people and events goes, which isn't actually very far. I wonder if kids would be as quick to understand his teacher as an old person like me? I already knew a few of the characters, a little, from reading Okay For Now. Mostly I knew that Holling is a good guy because of what he does for Doug, the protagonist of Okay For Now at the start of that book. In this book we get to see him needing--and finding--his own people to care about him and help him grow up. He shows a great deal of promise in that direction by the end of the book.

I found this book didn't have the hard-to-read parts that I found in Okay For Now, with a stronger emphasis on humor, making it more of an upper middle-grade read compared to the others in the series, which I consider more YA. There are some harsh realities in here about the Vietnam War, but at one remove, and there are a lot of bullies, young and old, but there are also some amazing people who help Holling.

 

Now for the second book. Maybe instead of just waiting until you finish the first book before looking at this, it would be better if you read each of these books far enough apart to not quite remember the others when you read. Then you can read each as free-standing, which they are. There's just also a little baggage.

 

Title: Just Like That
Author: Gary D. Schmidt
Publication Info: Clarion Books 2021, 387 pages.
Source: Library

Publisher's blurb (via Goodreads):
Following the death of her closest friend in summer 1968, Meryl Lee Kowalski goes off to St. Elene's Preparatory Academy for Girls, where she struggles to navigate the venerable boarding school's traditions and a social structure heavily weighted toward students from wealthy backgrounds. In a parallel story, Matt Coffin has wound up on the Maine coast near St. Elene's with a pillowcase full of money lifted from the leader of a criminal gang, fearing the gang's relentless, destructive pursuit. Both young people gradually dispel their loneliness, finding a way to be hopeful and also finding each other. 

My Review:  
The last word of the title of this book should be read with a snap of the fingers, because that's the reference--that things, people, a way of life, can vanish just like that. Which is why the opening of this book was sort of a punch to the solar plexus, because if you read The Wednesday Wars you know that "closest friend" who died. If you've also lost someone "just like that," it's a double whammy. I almost quit, not because it wasn't good, but because it was too good.

I'm glad I kept on. Both Meryl Lee and Matt are working through some tough stuff, and there's real danger, over-the-top snotty rich kids who end up being well-rounded characters and maybe nicer than you thought, and a bit of young love. In the end, I found it a beautiful story.

 
My Recommendation: 
This really is for the whole series: I put these books on the cusp between middle grade and YA. They have a certain MG feel about them in many places, especially the middle school struggles and tentative bits of early romance, but there are also so pretty adult issues. Which I guess is what life is like for too many kids. Still, I wouldn't give these to the nine- and ten-year-olds. I'd say 12 and up. They might also spark some discussions about the Vietnam war, which would be an excellent thing in our history-starved times.

  

FTC Disclosure: I checked The Wednesday Wars and Just Like That out of the library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review. The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

 

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 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026 

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