Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb

I chose Wishin and Hopin'  for our book club's November read partially because its subtitle is A Christmas Story and partially because it was available from the library as a Book Bundle (15 copies).

Our book club met to discuss the book at the end of November. One of our members who is quite the chef and caterer baked Christmas cookies and someone else brought Hawaiian Punch. We had a lively discussion, as we always do, even though I never found discussion questions online specific to the novel. We had to go with generic fiction questions. Much of the talk and laughter centered around our memories of the 1960's culture brought to mind by the story. The group gave Wishin' and Hopin' a rating of 3.3 with no votes of 5 or 1. We pretty much agreed it wasn't a great work of literature but it was an entertaining read!

I actually loved the novel, a sort of fictionalized memoir of a 5th grade boy. When I taught 5th grade I encouraged my students to make text-to-self connections while reading.  In other words to compare the experiences of their own lives to the characters, events, setting, etc., of the story.  Though I am not Catholic and didn't attend parochial school, I could so identify with the setting, 1964, and the preteen humor, thanks to teaching 11-year-olds for 20+ years.  The main character, Felix Funicello, was several years behind where I was in 1964 but I was flooded with memories of Annette Funicello, the Mickey Mouse Club, American Bandstand, the '64 presidential election, Dusty Springfield and other pop singers.

When we think back to our own school days, most of us can probably think of classmates who were "Rosalie" or "Lonny" or a favorite teacher who was "Madame." We elementary school teachers have a much larger pool of students to compare to the characters!  I can't say I remember a "Zhenya" but she was such a colorful character, an amusing addition, and she served to remind us of the paranoia about communists back in the day.

This novel also seemed a timely choice since the story pretty much began in October and ended at Christmas time; we began reading near Halloween, were being bombarded with presidential campaign ads, would be discussing it just after Thanksgiving and anticipating Christmas.  As a rule our book club doesn't meet in December so a Christmas story seemed an appropriate way to wind up our 2012 year.

I am often involved in drama and had recently learned about and even participated in "tableaux vivants." The Christmas production at the end reminded me so much of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, one of my favorite Christmas stories ever---very funny!

The fictional epilogue was an interesting addition and made me think of animated movie out-takes, contrived but often hilarious.

I thought Wishin' and Hopin' was a quick, easy read, both heartwarming and amusing! I gave it a 4, in case you're wondering.