Newberry Award winning book:"The Wednesday Wars" by: Gary D. Schmidt.
Heather Hoodhood is the main character, Holling's older sister.
I think she's quite a bit sassy, but I feel like after Holling helped her out a ton, she had a huge change of heart, and I like her for that.
What are your feelings about Heather? Why?
Sibling relationships in most children's and young adult novels bug me because they don't seem to be much if anything like my experience of being a sibling, as if the author was too lazy to try to really describe what it's like to have a brother or a sister. I think siblings admire each other and appreciate each other more than they're annoyed by each other. I didn't like the cookie-cutter feel of Holling's and Heather's relationship. My favorite moments in the book are the times when they stop bickering and she acts like I think siblings really would--for example when she nearly cries telling him that he shouldn't go to military school because she doesn't want him to fight in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteBut except for that frustration with the way Schmidt depicts a sibling relationship, I agree with you about Heather. She's a pretty great character.
And, of course, maybe it's just that I have such amazing and wonderful siblings, so my perspective is skewed.
I think it's a little symbolic that Heather's name was never introduced until Holling and Heather became friends. Heather was always addressed as "big sister" until then.
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