The Great Treehouse War

“I suppose my question to the both of you, then (and I don’t mean to pry—understand I simply ask in the best interest of your daughter), is this: What happens to Winnie on Wednesdays?”

Mr. Benetto’s letter to Winnie’s parents precedes Chapter 1 and establishes Wednesdays as a motif. It signals their significance and foreshadows their role as a symbol of normalcy and escape for Winnie.

“As her parents continued their argument, Winnie scooped up Buttons and headed down the hallway to her room. Neither of her parents seemed to notice that she’d left. Winnie shut the door on the bickering, thinking that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all, having one day a week to herself.”

This scene characterizes Winnie’s dynamic with her parents. Their initial inability to look past their own conflict and understand Winnie’s needs defines the trajectory of their relationship arc in the narrative—establishing communication and consideration as important tools that Winnie and her parents must bring to their relationship to regain equilibrium in their family dynamic. The final sentence demonstrates how her parents’ conflict affects Winnie and foreshadows the treehouse as a place of safety and Wednesdays as her escape.

“Thinking it was a nothing-special Wednesday, Winnie decided to do the nothing-special things she normally did (which were really kind of special, after all). […] On nothing-special Wednesdays, Winnie often ended up doing the sorts of things that most kids could do any old day of the week.”

This quote answers the question Mr. Benetto’s letter poses at the beginning of the novel and develops Wednesdays as a motif representing refuge amidst the chaos of Winnie’s situation. in this quote, Wednesdays also represent how children going through divorce might feel in relation to their peers. Their reality has shifted and they may feel themselves to be living a different “normal.”