During the past two weeks, I have read and finished the book, "The Wave" by Todd Strasser. The Wave is about a high school history class, and an experiment the teacher set up so his students could better understand the Nazis. How the Nazis were made and why nobody opposed them in Germany. Before the experiment, the class was very judgemental about it. They couldn't understand how the people of Germany just sat around and let them do the things they did. After they did the experiment, they now understood. This is why I think you can't judge or understand something before you actually experience it yourself. If you put yourself in the actual situation your views may change. You may see the pressure somebody had on them or the pressure they didn't have on them.
Ben Ross, also known as Mr. Ross, is the history teacher in this book that organized the experiment for the students. At the beginning of the book, it starts out with him showing his class a film about the holocaust and the things that happened in them. After seeing the film, his class gets very upset. They get upset because of how horrible the the things they just saw are, and because they don't understand how the people of Germany could just sit around and pretend they didn't know anything and just let that happen. This is the reason Mr. Ross created the experiment. The experiment that he created was to form a group in his history class called, "The Wave". The Wave was supposed to be a group were everybody is equal and is based around discipline, community, and action. Their slogan and motto was; "Strength Through Discipline, Strength Through Community, Strength Through Action". What he didn't expect was the group to get out of control. It spread through the entire school, recruiting every single person they could fine, and threaten or bully any kid that didn't want to join. Much like the Nazis. He wanted them to understand that the idea of the Nazis wasn't so ridiculous and could happen very easily, as they had just demonstrated.
Laurie Sanders, is another main character in the story. She is a senior girl in highschool and in Mr. Ross' history class. She is one of the people at the beginning who don't understand how Germany just let the Nazis run wild and reek havoc and injustice into the world. After the film she said; "How could Germany sit back while the Nazis slaughtered people all around them and say they didn't know about it? How could they do that? How could they even say that?". Laurie soon found out the answer to her questions, via the wave. She saw first hand how the wave swept over and completely conquered the school in days. She saw how powerful it became and how people were too scared to oppose it for fear of what they would do in return. She judged something before she herself had been in that exact situation. She judged it, but didn't really understand the issue since she had never lived through it.
I think this book showed a lot about coming of age. The novel shows how a group of highschoolers were swept into something and had their ignorance and innocence wiped away. It showed them coming to a realization and coming to true terms with the world and with society. This is what I feel like coming of age is all about: coming to terms with things and realizing the truth. This is why I feel this book is a perfect example of a coming of age novel.
The wave is a story that shows us about coming of age, and revealing the truth behind the world. It shows us that we shouldn't judge or try to understand things before we are put into the situation ourselves because we may not have the correct view. We may not know what it was like, what it wasn't like, and so forth. I personally really enjoyed reading this book. This book did only help the characters understand the world and society, but it also taught me these things as well. Never would I have learned this from any other way.
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