HOLES, a book review by thierryhenry14

This review contains spoilers!
Title: Holes

Author: Louis Sachar

Format: Hardcover

Length: 233 pages

Price: unknown

This story is about a young boy named Stanley Yelnats who was accused of stealing a famous baseball player's shoes. Stanley was offered a choice; he could go to Camp Green Lake or juvy. Stanley had never been to camp before so he thought it would be fun. He was badly mistaken. Camp Green Lake wasn’t even a lake. It was a dry bed of what used to be a lake. But someone decided it would be a good place to make teenage male convicts dig for gold but tell them that they are just “digging to build character.”

Camp Green Lake wasn’t always a camp for bad boys, you see. In fact, it used to be the very same town that Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealin’-great-great-grandfather lived in, loved in, and died in. While Sachar spins Stanley’s story, he also delicately weaves the story of Stanley's great- great grandfather. Stanley makes a deal with a tent-mate who can’t read. He promises his soon to be friend, Zero, that he could teach him to read and write, and in turn Zero dug half of Stanley’s hole for him. A couple weeks later Zero gets tired of everyone teasing him all of the time, so he decides to run away which, in the middle of a desert that has no water in it, is a really bad idea. But Stanley quickly follows suit and runs away from Camp Green Lake to look for Zero. Stanley succeeds at that task but is faced with another, how to survive. Stanley and Zero walk and walk until Stanley finds what he is looking for; the same exact mountain that his great great grandfather found refuge on. With some difficulty they make it to the top of the mountain that kind of looks like a thumb and they find exactly what they were looking for--Water!!!!!!!!!!

Not only did they find water but they also found onions. So for the next couple of days they live off of onions and water until Stanley decides to go back to camp to find his great great grandfather's treasure that the warden was looking for.

My favorite part was when Stanley steals Mr. Sir's truck and then buries it in a hole.

I give this book four out of five chocolate bars because I feel that there were some parts that the author could have written it better but otherwise it was an outstanding book.

I also give this book the fairy princess rating. It is totally appropriate for all ages.

Cover Thoughts:  I didn't like the cover very much.  When I was little, it scared me, which is why I didn't read this book earlier.  Just the guy's head poking out of the hole creeped me out.