Holes - You know you wanna dig it.....
Written: Sep 28 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Characters, Main and ancillary stories, Short, fluid chapters
Cons: Well, um.......no.
The Bottom Line: When is a hole more than just a hole? Only the bottom line knows......
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| millinocket's Full Review: Louis Sachar - Holes |
Long, long ago, in a land far away, I saw a movie called Holes…….
Okay, so it was two years ago and six blocks away and I used the movie to bribe my kid. It’s just that the fairy tale beginning sounds so much better……
So, once upon a time I bribed my child with a movie. There. That’s better – the fairy tale and the sordid truth! I told my son that if he read the whole book, I would take him to that movie – and it worked! So he read the book, we saw the film – we loved it, bought it and I promptly forgot the book ever existed at all. Until now – when it occurred to me that bribery is far less loathsome when the briber has actually done what was required of the bribee…….so I read the book, too. And such it is that only now have I learned the cold, hard truth. My brilliant attempt at coercion, at the long-held parental tradition of learning, reading and growing through bribery, was nothing but a ruse. He would have finished that book with or without the carrot of seeing the movie dangling in front of him. He would have finished it for the same reason I finished it – it’s wonderful.
Holes, the book (like the film), centers on young Stanley Yelnats. Stanley is an unlucky boy. His is an unlucky family – unlucky for many generations, or so the superstitions say. Stanley can’t help but believe in his genetic misfortune as he is sent away to “camp” (aka: juvie) for a crime he didn’t commit. A stupid crime at that. His well meaning but not wealthy parents want the best for him and convince themselves that Camp Green Lake really is a camp – the kind they could never afford. Oh, how wrong they are. Camp Green Lake is a desert. A desert full of holes dug by boys like Stanley, under the guise of “building character”. It’s a place where the land is mean, the adults are mean, the conditions are mean and it makes the boys even meaner than they were when they got there. Yeah, Stanley looks to have inherited a nice chunk of that family bad luck.
Holes, written by Louis Sachar in 1998, is a wonderful tale filled with all sorts of morals and stories and strange coincidences. The main story of Stanley and his experiences at Camp Green Lake is interwoven with a historical tale of Green Lake back when it actually was a lake. Even more history is thrown in as we learn of the beginnings of the bad luck for the Yelnats family.
This many storylines in a book meant for kids – even older kids – could be an absolute mess, with all sorts of confusion about where we are, when we are and who exactly we’re talking about. Only it isn’t a mess, not by a long stretch. Sachar, using short chapters and clearly defined action and boundaries between his different stories, manages to make each tale separate and easily distinguishable from the others, while also letting the reader begin to make connections between them as the stories move forward. Stanley does not know the history that we are learning as he toils in the hot sun – he is not putting pieces together as his world runs head on into the past. The reader is making the connections – Sachar is letting us in on secrets that explain those things the boys must discover for themselves. We get to be something like the omniscient narrator, especially in the latter half of the book. It’s wonderful to see the boys at Camp Green Lake stumble into the remnants of the history we’ve been reading about the whole way through. It’s wonderful to see when and how those worlds will finally come together. There is more than enough suspense to keep the reader going, as the clues and secrets are meted out in bits and pieces as the story of Stanley unfolds. The end product is a novel with both a rich cast of characters and a delightfully twisty, fun story into which they are placed.
The book is written, I would hazard to guess, at approximately a fourth to seventh grade reading level (nine to twelve-year-olds are probably the main target audience). Younger kids might be able to follow the short, fluidly written chapters, but the vocabulary, some of the themes and the flashbacks are likely to leave them confused. As for adults – it’s a quick, easy read; a few hours should do it. It’s the kind of book you can lose yourself in for a little while and come out satisfied at the end, feeling good about the characters and the story resolution, knowing that there are writers out there who know how to tell kids a story they’ll love and understand and from which they can take away something positive. Holes touches on loyalty, friendship, insecurity, leadership, racism and the importance of family – all with just a light enough touch not to make the kids groan and roll their eyes (quite a feat, indeed).
The book and film versions of Holes are remarkably similar. Both penned by Sachar, the movie stays very true to the written tale, deviating only in a few, minor areas that, in truth, make the story more film-friendly. All of the major story components and characters are left intact; even the structure remains basically the same. As is almost always the case for me, the book has that intangible element of the reader’s own imagination to pull it slightly ahead of the film. Visualizing the camp, the boys, the history is all somehow more satisfying than having it all placed in front of you. The flashback structure, as well, is easier to follow with Sachar’s clear, short chapters as a guide. So my ultimate nod goes to the book as the superior version – but not by much, which says a lot for the film. Both versions are absolutely delightful. So do yourself a favor. When you decide to use the movie to bribe your child into reading the book, make sure you get the chance to read it, too.
*This review of the novel Holes, with its brief comparison to the film of the same name, is part of the T&A Write/Off, sponsored by pearannoyed. The idea being to review two things – one a direct result of the other. In this case, I placed the cart before the horse, reviewing the 2003 film version of Holes here, when it was released in theaters, and only now reviewing the original novel on which the film was based.
For other entries, or if you wish to participate, go here!*
Recommended:
Yes
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millinocket
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