Holes by Louis Sachar

4th grade and up

Everyone I talked to about my book selections for this blog told me how hilarious this Newbery winner would be. I assumed they were talking about the kind of slapstick nonsensical hilarity that I associated with Shia LaBeouf from his Even Stevens days since I knew he played the main character, Stanley Yelnats, in the movie version of the book. I had never seen the movie, and so felt that my reading would not be unduly influenced, aside from the fact that I saw a young Disneyesque Shia LaBeouf in my head.

I cannot say that the book was laugh-out-loud funny as everyone said. But because I didn’t experience the side-splitting laughter they described does not mean Holes was not a worthwhile experience. Indeed, I was terribly impressed with the plot turns that tied the various stories together, not to mention particularly sickened by the idea that Stanley and Zero would actually drink hundred-year-old sploosh. I found myself smiling and "ahhing" at the ways the characters’ histories intertwined, with the deeds of long dead ancestors playing a direct role in their descendants’ lives. I can’t think of another children’s book that is so tightly plotted – the last time I was this impressed with the cohesion of a plot was when I read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but even that story does not come close to the way that every detail of Holes depends on every other detail. This level of intricacy seems appropriate to the primary focus of the book; it mirrors Stanley and Zero’s growing realization that they must depend on each other and work together to achieve their goals. The cleverness of the plot, while a worthy accomplishment, would have been nothing without the heart that the boys’ friendship brings, and so I applaud Sachar for realizing that a story can have all the plot in the world, but making the reader care about the characters is what really makes a book a winner.