Holes by Louis Sachar

My children enjoy reading books, and when I want to give them a book as a gift, I sometimes have a hard time deciding on what books that should be. When I was my daughter's age, I struggled reading Black Sunday by Thomas Harris, which is a book I wouldn't recommend to anyone, let alone a child. (I don't think I ever made it to the climactic Super Bowl scene.)

Anyway, one way I've been getting book ideas for my kids is to check the list of Newbery Medal Winners. One of these was Holes by Louis Sachar. I had heard somewhere that this was an interesting book for children and adults, so I bought this one as a gift, and then read it myself.

Holes is the story of young Stanley Yelnats. (I don't recall how old he is in the book.) Stanley is mistakenly convicted of theft, due, it is claimed to a curse placed on his "no good dirty rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather", whose descendants are cursed to bad luck because he didn't live up to a promise made to an old Latvian gypsy woman. Stanley is sentenced to Camp Green Lake, where, in order to build character, the residents are required daily to dig a hole five feet deep and five feet around in a dry lake bed.

It becomes clear that the people running the camp are looking for something, beyond building character. But what is it? And who will find it first?

Interspersed with the present-day story are some flashback scenes, both to the Latvian old country, and to the Green Lake area of 110 years ago. How do these fit together and how do they relate to the present story?

While I heard that the book was recommended for adults, it is still very much a kids book, both in length and in depth. Don't be led to think otherwise. I've tended to say that I prefer short books, but this is rather shallow compared to adult literature. But does this make it a bad book? Not necessarily.

Still, despite the awards, I'm not a big fan of the book. I thought that the first 2/3 or so was rather slow moving, though it was interesting how all the threads wove together. Also, before reading it, I had no idea what the holes were being dug for. I don't want to give away the story or anything, but I had assumed that they might be related to space aliens or a portal to another dimension, or something like that. Instead, the answer is a little more mundane.

As a kids' book, I don't have anything against it. If a child is able to read a book of this magnitude, I can't think of any reason to go against the Newbery Committee, even though I've found the few other Newbury books I'm familiar with (Shiloh, The Slave Dancer) to be better. But as adult reading, there's not a lot to recommend it, unless, perhaps, you want to read the same thing that your child does. Two stars out of five.