CITATION
Sachar, L. (1998). Holes. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,.
INTRO
When it comes to young adult books one book stands out from my childhood as a classic, that book is “Holes” By Lois Sachar. “Holes” is one of the books that I actually remember reading in my 6th grade reading class. I thought it was a very interesting story that kept me reading the book. I believe my 4th grade year is when reading books started to get more of a chore, so I am happy that I actually had the chance to enjoy this book and not just write it off as an assignment. This is why I have chosen to share it as a review for my 2nd book review this quarter!
SUMMARY
The book “Holes” follows the story of a young boy name Stanley Yelnats IV, a young boy who’s family is cursed with bad luck, and his adventure at Camp Green Lake, a camp for boys who have committed a crime or are in trouble. Stanley is sent to the camp because he is wrongly accused of stealing a pair of very expensive shoes from a charity auction. At the camp he meets many of the other characters in the book and they are forced to dig holes as a way to build character, but secretly the warden has the boys digging to find a buried treasure! In the end the boys do find the treasure and it turns out that it actually belonged to Stanley’s ancestor, so it rightfully belongs to his family, which is a huge help.
CRITICAL THINKING
One of the best things about using this book in a classroom is that there is a movie adaptation. One of the things that I would do in my classroom is to have the students first read the book version of the story. Then I would show the movie in the classroom. I would ask the children to explain which version of the story that they enjoyed the most and why. I would also ask them to list noticeable differences between the movie and the book. I believe this is a good book to movie adaptation but there were still differences and I would like my students to be able to notice the differences and express if they thought they helped or hurt the story.
When I remember reading the book, way before the movie had actually came out and even as a reread it, my mind always created an image of what Camp Green Lake looks like in my mind. As a creative piece I would ask that my students create what their view of Camp Green Lake. If I were tying the book in with the movie, I would ask that the students complete this assignment before we actually watched the movie so their imaginations weren’t hindered. I think that by letting the students use there imaginations and create there own version of Camp Green Lake they will be able to share how they connected with the descriptions in the book.
Another thing that kept me reading the book as a child, and even today, was my connection to Stanley. I feel like I connected to him because I could actually put myself in his shoes and see myself in his position and it made me a little scared. It made me think about how anyone could be wrongly accused for a crime and be sent away for something they didn’t do. As a child I didn’t really know the reality of this, but now, as an adult I do know that people are wrongly accused and sent to prison. As a classroom adaptation to this I would have my students try to find a character in the book that they most identified with and write a journal entry as that person. The journal entry would be about a day at Camp Green Lake in the eyes of the character chosen. I believe this would be another way for students to express how they personally connected with the story. This is an assignment that I would probably assign AFTER watching the movie, because students might be able to better identify with a character after seeing them on the screen.
At the end of the book the author leaves us with a pretty good picture of how everything went. I think that the reader is left with the ability to use their imagination at this point in the story as well. I think another great activity for students would be to use their inference skills to write about what might happen next in Stanley and Zero’s lives. Using what they learned from the story and mixing it with their imaginations giving a whole new start to a 2nd installment of “Holes”.
All in all I believe that “Holes” is a very good book and something that I will definitely share in my classroom one day! If you have read it as a young child and have seen the movie I definitely suggest that you read the book again. It is one of the few books from my middle school years that I actually enjoyed that I was forced to read. I think that it having a touch of “realistic fiction” really made me enjoy it more. It was different then the other books that we were forced to read in class. The spotted lizards, the buried treasures, and the crazy nicknames definitely made the story more interesting and it made me want to continue reading the book until I was finished! It is one of the few books that I actually “read ahead” on.
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