This book is not truly YA; it's about a middle schooler, so it's more of a middle-grades novel. But that usually turns me off from a book (I feel like that's going slightly too young for me unless I'm reading it for nostalgic purposes), but that would be a mistake in this book. It really, really works for even an adult. I truly loved this book. It was sweet and serious and funny and sad and meaningful, and about growing up but not too much yet. It's about Holling Hoodhood, growing up on Long Island in 1967-68 during the Vietnam War, with an overbearing dad. He starts off talking about how his English teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates him more than anything, because he is the only student left in her class on Wednesday afternoons while all the Catholic and Jewish students get taken out for religious instruction. So every Wednesday she starts reading Shakespeare's plays with him, and even though he thinks she's doing it to punish him, he begins to internalize it and love it and become a hero in his own story.
I loved Holling's character in this story. If all middle-school-aged boys were as sweet and curious as he is, the world would be a better place. Not that he was overly sweet--he just seemed young and interested in playing baseball and worshipping his baseball idols and teasing his crush instead of trying to get too old too fast. I really enjoyed that the book was written from his perspective and that we got to hear his opinions and thoughts, and how Mrs. Baker started out as this scary villain at the beginning of the book, and morphed into a kind of friend (although he'd never have said that, being a teenage boy). I would and will definitely re-read this book someday--it's even worth buying and putting on my bookshelf. For sure. I wish I'd read this when I was younger, because I would have LOVED it then, although it didn't come out until 2007.
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