In The Wednesday Wars, the Hoodhoods are Holling’s family, while the Kowalskis are the family of his friend Meryl Lee. Through the course of Gary Schmidt’s novel, the teenagers’ friendship grows into a romantic relationship. In February, Holling reads William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which tells of the star-crossed love between Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet of Italy. Their families have been feuding for generations, and whenever two male members of the families run into each other on the street, violence is likely to ensue. In the play, these skirmishes end in the deaths of members of both families. Because of the feud, Romeo and Juliet are not supposed to meet, much less speak, and certainly should not fall in love—but they do.

In the novel, the teenagers’ fathers are both in the construction business and are rivals for the same building contracts. Although the enmity between them is not as strong, Holling at one point suspects that Meryl Lee has told her father a business secret; however, they patch up their differences.

There are many differences between the two sets of families and the plots of the play and the novel respectively. The Italian families’ feud resulted in many deaths, and the two young lovers both die at the end. The modern American families’ negative dealings extends only to business, and both teens are still alive as the novel concludes.