I just really enjoy his books. So much I can even overlook the shame I feel for having discovered him through Oprah's book club.
This book was hilarious and a great pre-Christmas read. It tells the story from a 10 year old Catholic school boys perspective and I love the gray incomplete knowledge that perspective brings to the story. If kids don't know the answer to something they will often fill in the blanks themselves and it's almost always wrong.
A Russian girl joins the class during the height of the Cold War and I had a ton of fun pronouncing the botched English language with a Russian accent whenever that character would speak.
This book also cemented in me a desire to see New England, which should be happening next fall!
From GoodReads:
It's 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he'll never forget.
LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello
Back in his beloved fictional town of Three Rivers, Connecticut, with a new cast of endearing characters, Wally Lamb takes his readers straight into the halls of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School—where Mother Filomina's word is law and goody-two-shoes Rosalie Twerski is sure to be minding everyone's business. But grammar and arithmetic move to the back burner this holiday season with the sudden arrivals of substitute teacher Madame Frechette, straight from QuÉbec, and feisty Russian student Zhenya Kabakova. While Felix learns the meaning of French kissing, cultural misunderstanding, and tableaux vivants, Wishin' and Hopin' barrels toward one outrageous Christmas.
From the Funicello family's bus-station lunch counter to the elementary school playground (with an uproarious stop at the Pillsbury Bake-Off), Wishin' and Hopin' is a vivid slice of 1960s life, a wise and witty holiday tale that celebrates where we've been—and how far we've come
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