Set against the dramatic historical backdrop of the Vietnam War, The Wednesday Wars is a young adult novel written by Gary D. Schmidt published in 2007. It won a Newbery Honor medal in 2008 and was also nominated for the 2010 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award.
The novel is set in 1967-1968 and centers around a seventh-grade boy named Holling Hoodhood who goes to a heavily divided religious school but does not have a regular religious class every Wednesday like the other students because he is Presbyterian. The Wednesday Wars is about his growing kinship with a teacher at his school and his struggle for acceptance in his household with his overbearing father.
The Wednesday Wars was well-received by critics and readers alike. It was praised for its intriguing antihero and plot that, although it has no clear climax, is compelling all the same.
