#33 A book from your childhood: Holes, by Louis Sachar.
Stanley Yelnats IV; well let’s just say the Yelnats family in general have very bad luck. They always blame Stanley’s “no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.” Everything starts when shoes magically fall out of the sky and land around poor Stanley’s neck. Within minutes he is surrounded by cops and arrested for stealing these sneakers from a fundraiser for a children’s orphanage. This leads to Stanley being sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile imprisonment and disciplinary facility.
Imagine Stanley’s surprise when he arrives at Camp Green Lake, to discover it’s actually in the middle of nowhere; a desert. Day in and day out Stanley, along with the other inmates, must dig holes in this barren land to “build character”. Stanley notices though that every time someone finds something, the camp counselor goes crazy, and the finder gets special perks. It doesn’t take long however for him to also realize the hierarchy among the inmates, and he is forced to “learn his place”.
A second storyline is introduced to explain the bad luck curse that the Yelnats swear they have. We meet and learn the legend of Stanley Yelnats the first, aka the “no-good-dirty-rotten pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather”. As we progress you also learn the story behind the camp and why the counselor is obsessed with digging, specifically in the middle of a dried-up lake. These three tales are the puzzle pieces of this book, and when they all settle in their place, Stanley Yelnats IV puts down his foot and takes his fate into his own hands, sending the bad luck curse to hell.
This is a very entertaining book. It shows the power of superstition and how it can hold back or even propel individuals forward. I thoroughly enjoyed how all three storylines slip together so effortlessly. Don’t let anything or anyone tell you what you can’t do; dig a little deeper. 4.8 out of 5.
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