Book
Summary:
Stanley Yelnats is unlucky,
and his luck has been passed down from generation to generation starting with
his great-great grandfather. The males
in his family always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. After Stanley is wrongly accused of stealing,
he is sent to Camp Green Lake to be serve out his punishment. At
this camp, Stanley and his campmates are forced to dig holes in the hot Texas
sun to improve their character. While at
camp, Stanley makes a deal to help a campmate learn to read in exchange for
help with digging holes. Through a
series of coincidences, the boys discover their luck is about to change and
fate has brought them together.
APA Reference of the Book:
Sachar, L. (1998). Holes. New York, NY: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux.
Impressions:
Once
I started reading this book, I had a hard time putting the book down. The way
Sachar presented the story was like a puzzle- one piece at a time, yet the
connecting pieces were mixed in a big pile.
Immediately, I felt sorry for young Stanley and wanted to know how his
story connected to Kissin’ Kate Barlow’s and Sam’s story. Sachar did a good job
making me feel vested in Stanley’s and Zero’s story. As I read, I kept
wondering how is everything going to turn out okay? Though I must admit, I was
a little disappointed that the Warden did not get bit by a yellow-spotted
lizard. The way Sachar described the
Camp Green Lake and the desert, I could really get a good visual image in my
head. I could picture how hard and dry the ground was as Stanley was digging
his hole. I could see the peach trees
and the lake when Sam was an onion salesman and Kate was a school teacher. Overall, this book was very enjoyable and a
great read.
Reviews:
From Bulletin of the
Center for Children’s Books
Stanley Yelnats (yes, that's a palindrome) is sent to Camp
Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility for a crime he didn't actually
commit. Once there, he discovers that the inmates' days are spent digging holes
out in the Texas desert, with the bait of getting a day off if they find
something the Warden considers "interesting or unusual." Stanley
forms a bond with an expert hole-digger named Zero, whom he teaches to read,
and when Zero runs away into the desert, Stanley, after initial hesitation,
follows him. The two boys then struggle for survival, aided by lore and
leftovers from their ancestors, who sowed the seeds for the drama that's being
enacted now. This reads much more clearly than it explains: Sachar has
cunningly crafted his fiction, precisely placing snippets of historical
backstory within the chronicle of Stanley's travails, so that the focus of the
book is the coming together and resolving of the manifold strands of karma
(including Stanley's nogood-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather,
the feared nineteenth-century bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, a cheated gypsy, a
gentle onion fancier, and more). Sachar's dry, wry tone assists in making the
book's aim something other than gritty realism; though there is indeed wicked
villainy and triumphant virtue, the point is less the struggle of the
individual characters than their place in the working out of the larger
pattern. Though this isn't as much a puzzle book as Raskin's The Westing Game,
readers who appreciated that book's detailed construction as much as its story
will enjoy watching Stanley's saga unfold and fold together again.
Stevenson, D. (September 1998). [ Review of Holes, by Louis Sachar.] Bulletin
of the Center for the Children’s Book, 52(1), 29. Available from ProQuest http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2087/docview/223710347?pq-origsite=summon
In the Library:
After reading Holes, I
would break the students into groups and they would study palindromes and then
try to create their own palindromes. I
could also teach a lesson on cause and effect.
In partner groups, one student could discuss and write about the cause
while the other student discusses and writes about the effect. The story line spanned several generations, so
the students could also create a timeline that would trace each character and
the major events in the character’s life that lead up to the conclusion of the
book.
No comments:
Post a Comment