Dead Wednesday
Books | Juvenile Fiction / Social Themes / Death, Grief, Bereavement
3.2
(59)
Jerry Spinelli
Can playing dead bring you back to life? Maybe on Dead Wednesday… On this day the worlds of a shy boy and a gone girl collide, and the connection they make will change them both forever. A brilliant new novel from the Newbery Medal winner and author of the New York Times bestseller Stargirl. "Jerry Spinelli has created another middle grade masterpiece." —BookPage, starred review On Dead Wednesday, every eighth grader in Amber Springs is assigned the name and identity of a teenager who died a preventable death in the past year. The kids don black shirts and for the whole day everyone in town pretends they're invisible—as if they weren't even there. The adults think it will make them contemplate their mortality. The kids know it's a free pass to get away with anything. Worm Tarnauer feels invisible every day. He's perfectly happy being the unnoticed sidekick of his friend Eddie. So he's not expecting Dead Wednesday to feel that different. But he didn't count on being assigned Becca Finch (17, car crash). And he certainly didn't count on Becca showing up to boss him around! Letting this girl into his head is about to change everything. This is the story of the unexpected, heartbreaking, hilarious, truly epic day when Worm Tarnauer discovers his own life.
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More Details:
Author
Jerry Spinelli
Pages
240
Publisher
Random House Children's Books
Published Date
2021-08-03
ISBN
0593306694 9780593306697
Community ReviewsSee all
"I received an ARC courtesy of the publisher in exchange for my honest review.<br/><br/>I mostly enjoy the premise, but I'm having a hard time placing the age range of this book. The pacing is quite slow to start and it is going to need a very particular reader to have the patience to see this one through. The subject also has that heaviness to it-dead teens is not something every child can handle reading about. Is this middle grade? Is it teen? I just don't know...<br/><br/>And did anybody besides Worm/Robbie and Mean Monica learn anything beneficial from Dead Wednesday? Because it kind of seems like an unnecessary tradition that the kids treat as a joke and learn absolutely nothing from. Not sure if that makes a bit of a mockery of the concept.<br/><br/>For Libraries: Some potential triggers with death so be wary of handing this to a young reader who has recently lost someone as they might not enjoy the lightness of the dead being casually referred to as Wrappers."
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