Get in on the John

If you were to take the time to scroll down the sidebar a little, thanks to the Library Thing widget you would notice that I recently finished the the newberry prize winning book Holes by Louis Sachar. (The Newberry prize is the award that they give to exceptional childrens books).

I actually first discovered this book on the Holes DVD, a live action Disney Movie film which proved to be of unusually good quality. I enjoyed the story and filed away the name of the book in my memory for future reference.

And then my sister came back from Guinea, and this had been her in-flight reading for the trip, so I swiped it from her and dove in.

I read it in a couple of hours, it being a children's novel and all, but I have learned that the label of "Kids book" does not exclude the presence of an excellent and meaningful story, when a couple of years ago I broke down and read a book that had been molding on my shelf ever since I got it at the tender age of ten years old, and I already considered myself too old for "Kids books" (After all, I was reading the 900 page long and slightly violent Sword of Truth books). That book was called The Giver, check it out if you get a chance.


Much like The Giver the writing is simple to read and understand, yet between the lines there can be found a deep and rich tapestry of ideas and emotions.

Camp Green Lake is neither a camp, nor is it anywhere near a lake or greenery of any kind. Stanley Yelnats was given a choice between going to Camp Green Lake or going to prison, and he had never been to camp. Unfourtunately for him, he should have choosen jail, but then again the Yelnats had been unlucky ever since Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather" was cursed by a gypsy woman. The inmates of Camp Green Lake are forced to spend everyday in under the beating sun, digging holes in the cracked desert earth; the warden says it's to "make bad boys turn into good boys", but some think that they are actually searching for something more.

Intersperced with this story line are several others; exploring the source of the Yelnats curse, the tragic story of the legendary bandit Kissin' Kate, and in the end they all tie together in a satisfying and coheasive hole. Oops, I fake-accidently said "hole" when I meant "whole". Teehee, aren't I funny?

In the end it was a quick and amusing read, and I would recommend it to you if you aren't looking for anything very complex.

I give it an above-average rating of 3/5 stars!