Holes

This month I read Holes by Louis Sachar. It was published in 1998 and won the Newbery Medal in 1999. It’s an amazing book!

Holes is a complicated and fantastic story. Every detail somehow comes full circle, including the main character’s name, Stanley Yelnats. Notice that Yelnats is Stanley backwards!

The story begins over 100 years ago when Stanley’s great-great-grandfather inadvertently brought a curse down on his family. The curse causes bad things to happen to the members of the Yelnats family for generations. Stanley is wrongfully accused of stealing a famous baseball player’s stinky sneakers and is sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake. The camp does not have a lake, and it is not green. It is a desert that used to be a lake. The boys at the center are forced to dig holes, but they don’t know why. Stanley grows in character and strength at Camp Green Lake through misery and suffering. In the end, Stanley undoes his family’s curse and makes them rich through a series of fantastic events.

Holes is an awesome story. I recommend this book to 7th graders. The story includes some rough "characters" and a few cuss words that are not appropriate for younger children.

List of Recommended Books by Grade:

2^nd grade –

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Miss Holly Is Too Jolly by Dan Gutman

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

3^rd grade –

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Among the Impostors by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

4^th grade –

Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

Louisiana's Song by Kerry Madden

The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan

The Golly Whopper Games by Jody Feldman

5^th grade –

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Benjamin Pratt & The Keeper of the School by Andrew Clements

Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

6^th grade –

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman

Dewey, by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

The Wanderer by Sharon Creech

The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

7^th grade and up –

Holes by Louis Sachar

The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byers

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Pendragon Book One: The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The Seventeen Second Miracle, by Jason F. Wright