Friendship In 'The Wednesday Wars' By Gary D. Schmidt

Friendship. It is something that is essential to human life. Without it, life can be miserable. However, spoiling children is something the world should be without. It happens constantly, though. Friendship and spoiling are the the themes of The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt and “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, respectively. Two of the most opposite and common qualities in the universe. In “The Veldt”, Bradbury makes it apparent almost immediately that the children are spoiled. He writes early on, “…stood on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet across by forty feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as much as the rest of the house.” This shows that the children are very spoiled. Bradbury hints again and again through the short story how the children, Peter and Wendy, are spoiled. The consequences of damaging children in this way are monstrous. When pampered children don’t get their own way, terrible things happen. After many disappointments from their parents in just a few months, Wendy and Peters’ imaginations turns evil, and they end up killing their parents. At the end, Bradbury states, “Mr. and Mrs. Hadley

The main character, Holling Hoodhood, has hate instead of friendship surrounding him. His teacher, his family, and his classmates are all mean to him. Later on, his teacher and another adult, Mr. Goldman, start to behave nicely towards Holling. After this, some of his classmates develop ties to Holling. Danny Hupfer gives a baseball back to Mickey Mantle after the star is rude to Holling. Mery Lee Kowalski dates Holling even though their families are enemies. Near the end of the book, his sister gets nicer, also. Once she finds herself, she and Holling become very close. Because of all this friendship, Holling gains confidence and is a much happier boy. So, unlike Bradbury’s theme, friendship has good