Holes

Title: Holes
Author: Louis Sachar
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Year of Publication: 1998
Reader's Rating: 4

In a Nutshell: Stanley Yelnats is a middle-school-aged boy who was accused and pronounced guilty of stealing a pair of shoes owned by a famous athlete. The truth was, the shoes actually fell from somewhere up above and hit Stanley on the head but, of course, no one really believed him. His punishment was to spend eighteen months at Camp Green Lake, a camp for troubled youth (specifically, male youth). After arriving, Stanley saw that there was nothing green at the camp nor was there a lake. It was a dry desert area, where the campers were made to dig a hole every day that was five feet wide and five feet deep each. Working in the hot sun would turn a bad boy into a good boy, the camp said. But Stanley realized that they're not just "being turned into good boys." The warden was using them to look for something hidden under the sand. But what could it be?

The Good Stuff: I loved that the author is teaching kids something as well as entertaining them. Friendship was the main theme of Holes but what I loved most about it was the optimism and perseverance shown by the Yelnats family. The book was also written in a way that was interesting yet it wasn't sloppy. The story ties up together nicely.

The Not-So-Good Stuff: I felt like this book was saying that everything is controlled by destiny or fate. Of course, this is not something I believe in. I don't believe in fate or luck. I believe in the orderly plan made by Someone who is all-knowing, the Master Creator (if it wasn't rather obvious already, I'm talking about God). It's alright, I guess, to read this book, provided that the reader knows what to believe and what not to.

Reader's Say: The story is very good. There's also a movie adaptation of the novel and I highly recommend watching it. It's the only movie I've watched that stays really close to the book, to the point that the characters in the book and movie have the exact same lines. My parents also watched it and they liked it so I take it it's not a "bad" book. :)