the event where Holling sidesteps the oncoming older brother of Doug Swieteck.  Holling was invited to play in a pick up soccer game, and Holling became the target of Doug's older brother.  Holling deftly got out of the way of the charging bully, tripped him in the process, and caused the bully to hit his head on the goal post.  That single event kicked off the continuing battle between Holling and Doug's older brother.  

The main conflict in the book Wednesday Wars is Holling Hoodhood's struggle to grow up. In order to do this, Holling must learn to view things from perspectives other than his own, and, most difficult of all, he must acquire the wisdom to discover his own identity and the courage to stand up to his father.

The book chronicles the development of Holling as he takes a giant step from childhood to maturity. In the beginning of the narrative, Holling is completely self-centered; he perceives everything in his life solely from his own point of view. Holling's growth in this area is evident in his relationship with his teacher, Mrs. Baker. At the beginning of his seventh grade year, Holling is convinced that Mrs. Baker is out to get him. He interprets her every action as part of her schemes to do him in, to the extent that, when it is announced that her husband is about to be deployed to Vietnam, he thinks that her impassiveness is proof of her manipulative nature, and does not even consider that it may be a reaction to her own stress and grief. By the end of the story, Holling is much more able to empathize with others. He has developed mutual, caring relationships with Meryl Lee, his sister Heather, and Mrs. Baker, and his progress is affirmed by his teacher, who recognizes that Holling has the potential to think for himself and "dare to know that (he) may choose a happy ending."

Holling's relationship with his father is characterized by contention. His father is a domineering man who is concerned only with success according to his own shallow value system, and who has his children's futures mapped out for them, brooking no dissent. Holling, who is being groomed to take over his father's business, finally develops the courage to stand up for him after Danny Hupfer's bar mitzvah. Holling's father scoffs at the ceremony they have just witnessed, but Holling stands up for Danny, saying he has become a man. When Holling's father tells him that becoming a man has to do only with getting a good job and learning to "play for keeps," Holling counters by telling him,

"It's not just about a job. It's more. It has to do with choosing for yourself ("June).

In the “March” chapter of The Wednesday Wars, numerous conflicts come to the fore. Many of these involve various characters’ reactions to the escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War. The ongoing conflict between Holling’s older sister, Heather Hoodhood, and their father also escalates in the spring. Heather, who is a high-school senior, has increasingly voiced her opposition to the war but had not identified an appropriate outlet for her protests. Heather decides to take a positive activist stance by getting involved in the presidential race, as the election will be held that November. An enthusiastic supporter of Robert Kennedy Jr., she wants to volunteer with his campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Hoodhood is politically opposed, as he supports the current president, Richard Nixon, and is dismissive of Kennedy in particular as a representative of wealth and privilege. He forbids her to work on Kennedy’s campaign, which would probably involve national travel. Given that she seems to have extra time on her hands, he insists that she come to work at his architectural firm, which needs a receptionist. This conflict contributes to developments in subsequent chapters, when Heather runs away from home.

Other conflicts involve students bullying Mai Thi and Danny getting in trouble for physically fighting with them in an attempt to defend her. An internal conflict is Mrs. Baker’s struggles to stay calm while she worries about her husband, a military officer who is serving in Vietnam and has been declared missing in action.

I would say that the main conflict throughout the novel is between Holling and Mrs. Baker. I would not say that they are protagonist and antagonist through the entire novel, though. The conflict is with their changing relationship. Let me be clear on that. Their relationship is always teacher/student. Never romantic in any way. When the novel begins, Holling is forced to be present in Mrs. Baker's classroom on Wednesday afternoons. He's not happy about it, and Mrs. Baker isn't happy about it either. In fact, she has him do grammatical sentence diagramming and chalkboard cleaning. Yeah, not fun. But as the year goes on, Mrs. Baker starts reading Shakespeare with Holling. He learns to love it. His passion allows him to get the courage to sign up to act in a Shakespeare play. He decides to join the track team, and Mrs. Baker (a former Olympic runner) helps him train. In return, Holling helps Mrs. Baker find ways to develop a better rapport with her other students. Their relationship never stops growing throughout the novel.  

A second major conflict is between Holling's sister (Heather) and her parents. It's not a central focus to the book, but it is a big conflict. Holling's father is incredibly ambitious. He's stubborn, too and holds high standards. Holling's mother is completely passive and goes along with whatever her husband says. The book is taking place during the Vietnam war, so social and political opinions are all over the place, and Heather is becoming rebellious against her parents. It gets to the point where she runs away from home. Heather gets stranded, but Mr. and Mrs. Hoodhood do nothing. It's Holling that sends her money for the bus ticket home.  

A third conflict is Mrs. Baker's own internal struggle. Her husband is fighting in Vietnam. She has little to zero news about him, and the news media is continually showing bad news about the war. She's worried about him constantly, and she internalizes most of it. She's having a fairly good year at school with her students, but she is a mess on the inside.  

Each chapter in Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars is a month of Holling Hoodhood's seventh-grade year at Camillo Junior High. Quite a few things happen in Holling's world in this chapter.

April, of course, is spring, and this chapter recounts some of Holling's cross-country experiences. Holling is the only seventh-grader who makes the varisty team, and he is mercilessly tormented by the eighth grade boys. In one way this is a great motivation for him to keep practicing and running faster, but it is also quite annoying to him. In a meet at the end of the chapter, Holling beats all of his teammates to win a race after they pick on his friend Danny during the junior varsity race.

Mr. Guareschi, the principal, has unexpectedly "'received an administrative reassignment'" and has been replaced by an unlikely person--Mrs. Sidman.

In the real world (the world outside of junior high school), President Lyndon Johnson decides not to run for president, and Meryl Lee's father, Mr. Kowalski, is closing down his architecture firm and plans to move his family elsewhere. 

Mrs. Baker has arranged for Hollling and two of his friends and their fathers to attend Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, but Mr. Hoodhood does not show up; when Holling calls, his father's secretary says what Holling already knows in his heart:

"No, he has an important business meeting with the Chamber of Commerce scheduled for four thirty. He wouldn't miss a Chamber of Commerce meeting for a baseball game."

Miss Baker takes Holling to the game instead, and Holling has the experience of a lifetime. He gets to play with some members of the team on the field and gets his hero's jacket. 

Heather Hoodhood is forced to work in her father's architecture firm instead of doing what she would like to do with her life, which precipitates her running away.

Gary Schmidt’s novel is set in 1967–1968, during the Vietnam War and a period of civil unrest in the United States. Everyone is aware of the war’s effects on American society, but a few characters are more directly affected by the war. The death of an American soldier, although it does not happen at the school, is integral to the novel’s plot. Two devastating national tragedies also occur during the year the novel covers.

Betty Baker, Holling Hoodrood’s teacher, is among the school community members whom the war affects. Her husband, Lieutenant Tybalt Baker, is serving in Vietnam, and for a few weeks, he is reported Missing in Action. Toward the end of the year, however, he reappears, alive and well.

One of Holling’s fellow students, Mai Thi Huong, is a refugee from Vietnam. She suffers from the prejudice of the school’s cook, Mrs. Bigio, who sees the girl as a symbol of the war’s dangers. Mrs. Bigio’s husband was serving in the military and was killed in Vietnam. When other students bully Mai Thi, however, Mrs. Bigio is among those who come to her defense.

In April, the school community, like the rest of the world, is stunned to learn that Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. As the school year ends, they hear that Robert Kennedy has been assassinated as well, but the same month, Lieutenant Baker comes home.

The Wednesday Wars is full of major events, and some will be more important to readers than others. I'll list seven events that I think are important to the overall story.  

1. Holling gets placed in the "class" with Mrs. Baker while all of the other kids in school are at their religious studies classes. This is important because without this happening Holling would never establish the great relationship that he has with Mrs. Baker, and he would not learn to appreciate Shakespeare the way he does.
2. Holling saves his sister from being hit by the bus. Up until this point, readers see a lot of antagonism between Holling and his sister; however, Holling's heroic actions really secure his love for his sister. Heather is extremely grateful, and her attitude toward Holling begins to soften at this point in the story.
3. Heather runs away from home and gets stranded, then Holling rescues her. This is important because it cements the loving relationship between Holling and Heather. They know that they can always count on each other no matter what.
4. Meryl Lee and Holling go out on a date. Holling talks about his father's design for the school. Meryl Lee's father incorporates elements of the design, and Holling feels very betrayed by Meryl Lee. It's a rough patch in their relationship, but it is eventually fixed.
5. Holling gets slighted by his idol, Mickey Mantle. Mrs. Baker helps make up for this by contacting two other Yankee players and getting them to play some pickup baseball with Holling and his friends.
6. Holling plays a part in The Tempest and has to wear an embarrassing costume. He gets photographed in the costume and put in the paper. Those pictures are placed all over school, and Holling is mortified.  
7. Holling tries out for cross country and ends up being very good at it. He's so good that he wins the race and gets his first kiss from Meryl Lee as congratulations.

Person vs. Self: The novel focuses mainly on person vs. self conflict because it is a "coming-of-age" tale about Holling Hoodhood.  As a seventh grader, Holling is in an awkward stage in life naturally, but to complicate matters, he does not fit in at school because he is neither Catholic or Jewish like the other students at his school.  This causes him to be isolated every Wednesday.  In the end, however, Holling discovers who he really is, what he likes and dislikes, and that he is not simply an "ordinary" boy.  He is at peace with himself by the novel's conclusion. Man v. self conflict is the most signficant form of conflict in the novel, but I've listed some other examples of conflict below.

Person vs. Person: The primary "man v. man" conflict of the novel originally occurs between Holling and Mrs. Baker.  However, as their relationship changes and becomes a mentor/apprentice one, Holling encounters conflict with his family, Meryl Lee, and several others--but nothing like the original "war" between Mrs. Baker and him.

Society: While Holling endures his own inner conflict, the world around him (society) is immersed in conflict.  During the novel's course, the Vietnam War rages, MLK is assassinated, and Bobby Kennedy is killed. Gary Schmidt demonstrates that an individual can develop his own sense of self even if society is at war with itself.

Nature: There really is not much man v. nature conflict in the novel.  You could perhaps list the incident with the rats and Holling's "race" with them as an example.

Unknown: Mrs. Baker certainly faces conflict with the unknown.  During the novel, her husband is overseas in Vietnam.  She receives word that he is missing in action and must deal with not knowing if he is still alive, if he is okay, and if she will ever see him again.  In the end, she does hear from him, and the novel closes with her going to welcome him home.

Holling Hoodhood, Mrs. Baker, Doug Swieteck, and Holling’s mother and father are characters in chapter 1.

Holling Hoodhound is a Presbyterian in a school where all of the students are either Catholic or Jewish.  He thinks that his teacher Mrs. Baker hates him.  In 6th grade there were three Presbyterians, but in seventh grade there is only him.

Doug Swieteck was a classmate that once developed a list of 410 ways to get a teacher to hate you.

Mrs. Baker is Holling’s teacher at Camillo Junior High.  He has to stay with her on Wednesdays when the other students are excused to attend Hebrew School or Catechism.   

Of all of the kids in the seventh grade at Camillo Junior High, there was one that Mrs. Baker hated with heat whiter than the sun. … Me. (September, p. 1)

Holling fully expects a year-long war with Mrs. Baker to make up for the fact that she has to stay with him.  When she gives him an extra-long sentence to diagram, he takes that as proof.

Mr. Holling is an architect who thinks living in a house in the middle of town is Perfect.  Holling does not agree, since he does not belong anywhere.

Mrs. Holling smokes but doesn’t want her husband to know.

In the story, Holling must bring in twenty-two cream puffs to meet the demands of his classmates Danny, Mai Thi, and Meryl Lee.

Since his father won't give him a three-week advance on his allowance, Holling tries to bargain with the owner of Goldman's Best Bakery. He offers to do chores for Mr. Goldman, but what the latter needs is someone to play Ariel in the Long Island Shakespeare Company's holiday production of The Tempest.

After reciting lines from the play, Holling lands the part. However, he isn't especially happy with his "victory." Even though playing the part of Ariel will earn him twenty-two cream puffs, Holling balks at the fact that Ariel is a fairy. In addition, Holling must wear yellow tights with white feathers to play the role.

In this person versus society conflict, Holling must face his fear of mockery for taking on what is decidedly an effeminate role in a play. However, his desire to avoid a confrontation with Mai Thi, Danny, and Meryl Lee prevails.

Thus, with the demands on him, it's clear that Holling faces the possibility of friction with two parties: the students at Camillo Junior High and his classmates (Danny, Mai Thi, and Meryl Lee).

If he plays the part of Ariel (and the students at Camillo Junior High find out), he is likely to experience ridicule. But, if he doesn't play the part of Ariel, Holling won't be able to afford the twenty-two cream puffs he promised his classmates.

In the end, Holling plays the part of Ariel. Not long after, Doug Swieteck's brother pastes pictures of Holling (in the role of Ariel) up and down the halls of the school. The pictures are also pasted to the ceilings of classrooms, bathroom stalls, over drinking fountains, on all classroom doors, and on fire escape doors.

The text tells us that Doug Swieteck's brother even pastes the pictures on the trophies in the locked glass classes outside the Main Administrative Office.

Holling is appalled that even Coach Quatrini gets in on the act. The latter announces that morning exercises will involve stretches so everyone can practice soaring like Ariel the Fairy. Holling's experiences constitute one example of a person versus society conflict in the book.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt is a fantastic book.  I'm partially biased though since the author was my adviser in college.  At the book's core is the story of Holling Hoodhood's coming of age.  The book walks the reader through almost a year of Holling's life, and the focus of that year is his relationships with a variety of people.  As the book progresses, the reader sees Holling and his relationships transform as he becomes more mature.  Mrs. Baker moves from being a hard task master to a loving educator and confidant for Holling.  He gains confidence throughout the story which helps him deal with his tumultuous home life.  Let's face it, Mr. Hoodhood isn't exactly a warm and fuzzy father figure.  Along with Holling's increasing confidence comes his first love in the character of Meryl Lee.  Schmidt does a great job showing readers how Holling's coming of age is intricately woven in with his relationships.  As his relationships change, so does Holling.  And as Holling changes his own attitudes, his relationships change.  

The essential conflict in The Wednesday Wars is one between expectation and experience.

This conflict can be seen throughout the novel. For example, Holling has an ambivalent relationship with his father. Yet, despite his father's obvious failings, Holling continues to hope for the best. Most of the time, however, Mr. Hoodhood disappoints Holling. A prime example of Mr. Hoodhood's disinterest in Holling can be seen in the Mickey Mantle episode.

Accordingly, after playing the part of Ariel in The Tempest, Holling rushes outside, where his father is supposed to be waiting. Mr. Hoodhood had promised to take Holling to Baker's Sporting Emporium to see Mickey Mantle. Despite his disappointment, Holling manages to act quickly. He flags down a bus and begs the driver to take him to the stadium.

For his part, the driver takes pity on Holling. When Holling gets to the stadium, however, more disappointment awaits him. Upon seeing Holling in Ariel's costume, Mickey Mantle refuses to sign an autograph for Holling. Meanwhile, Danny Hupfer returns his own autographed baseball to Mickey Mantle after witnessing the athlete's rude treatment of Holling. Both Danny and Holling learn that sometimes, expectation does not correspond with experience. It is a painful life lesson.

Another example of this conflict is when Mrs. Bigio (bereft of her soldier husband) lashes out at Mai Thi. For her part, Mai Thi has also suffered, but she is too stunned to respond to Mrs. Bigio's pain. For both, the expectations of hope have been crushed. Mai Thi is displaced from her home, while Mrs. Bigio's husband dies at the hands of the Viet Cong in Vietnam. For Mrs. Bigio's husband, there is no victory celebration or triumphant return home. Instead, the warrior intent upon removing the scourge of communism from Vietnam dies in a foreign land.

Meanwhile, for Mai Thi, there is little hope that she will be able to return to her country of origin in the near future. Her hopes for safety and security are dashed upon the altar of war.

So, again, there is the discrepancy between expectation and experience for the characters in the novel.

As February begins, Holling is pleased that his friendship with Meryl Lee is progressing. The romantic theme is emphasized both by his reading William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for Mrs. Baker and by the two teenagers attending a Valentine’s Day performance of the play.

Excited about the plans that his father’s architectural firm has prepared for the new junior high school, Holling shares with his friend some design information as a doodle on a napkin. Her father is also an architect, however, and the contract had not yet been awarded. After hearing the information from his daughter, Meryl Lee’s father adapts some of those design features into his firm’s plans. This change results in his firm’s getting the contract instead of Holling’s father’s company.

When Holling learns this, he is furious at Meryl Lee. The conflict breaks out as an argument between the friends. He accuses her of deliberately sabotaging his father’s bid, but she insists she did not anticipate her father’s actions. It seems for a while that their friendship is over. She is so hurt and angry that she throws her sunglasses at him and the next day stays out of school. Holling decides to visit her at home, where he speaks with her father, who subsequently withdraws his firm’s bid. Their friendship is rescued.