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Summary: Holes
Review: Holes by Louis Sacher is realistic fiction. It is about a boy whose family is cursed. Not his whole family but the men and the boys. All because an old ancester promised an old lady he would carry her up the mountain to drink from the spring, but he didn't and the old lady put a curse on every man in Stanley's family. The best part of the book was when Zero ran away and then stole the water truck to go find him but he ran it into a hole that they had dug. He had to get out and run away. I beleve if I can read a book and get into it then somebody else should be able to enjoy it too. By the second or third page, I was so into it that I didn't want to put it down.
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Summary: A Great Read
Review: Holes keeps you interested all the way through, much like The Adventures Of Archie Reynolds and the classic Treasure Island. It's not quite as action oriented as those books, but it's still a great read. I strongly recommend it.
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Summary: other books are dirt compared to Holes
Review: Holes is another great book by Louis Sachar. The story is about an unlucky kid named Stanley Yelnats and his adventures at juvenile delinquent camp named Camp Green Lake. The reason why Stanley and his family are so unlucky are because of his "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather." Along the way Stanley meets new friends with crazy nicknames and soon gets one of his own, Hector Zeroni otherwise known as Zero becomes one of Stanley's best friends. This is a great book, and I believe everyone could learn a lesson or two from Stanley
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Summary: ***AWSOME***
Review: A boy sent to camp for stealing something he hasn't!
I find HOLES to be a very good book to read. The reason is because that every turn of the page in this book just keeps me going. You'll find that there's always something new just around the corner in ever word and sentence there is. I guarantee that you'll never get bored with this book. My favorite character is Stanley because he's the main character and he has a good personality. He goes to camp for stealing "something" that he had nothing to do with. The camp is a camp for juveniles and its not very good. I don't like the reason he goes to camp either. "There's a mysterious feel about this camp" Stanley says so in the book. I would recommend this book to older adults and middle-aged teenagers. The ending to the story was great because not only can you anticipate it but it sunrises you in the ending.
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Summary: Holes review
Review: Holes by Louis Sachar is about a boy named Stanley Yelnats who is wrongly accused of stealing Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston's sneakers that were donated to help raise money for a homeless shelter. As a consequence, Stanley is arrested and sent to a boy's detention center called Camp Green Lake. Here, Stanley and others are to dig one hole, five feet deep, and five feet across, each day in the dry lake bed. They are told that by doing this they would build character and turn their lives around. The philosophy is, "If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy." This is not the case, however, because the warden is really using Stanley and the other boys to dig for loot buried by Kissin' Kate Barlow.
This is a good book for children ages 10 and up. Being a Newberry Medal award winner, the book displays high literary merit in terms of many literary elements. The characters and setting of the story are unique, yet believable. The main character has an interesting name because his first name, Stanley, is also his last name spelled backwards. The other boys' nicknames are unique too: Armpit, Squid, Zigzag, Magnet and Zero. Zero inherited his nickname because " there is nothing inside his head." The book reveals great insight into Zero and other characters through dialogue, and the reader will find out that Zero is a bright kid yearning to learn, and more information about Stanley and the other hole diggers. These boys are digging their holes at a place called Camp Green Lake. With a name containing "Lake" in it, you'd think there'd be a lake there, and that is what also makes the setting unique, because there is no longer a lake there. It dried up over one hundred years ago and is now just a dry, flat wasteland. The plot is unique in a sense that it floats between past lives and present realities. It is pretty straightforward, but has three main stories to the book. One is the life of Stanley's great-great grandfather, the other is of Kissin' Kate Barlow, and the last is of the conditions which led to Stanley's sentence to the camp.
I found this book to be quite enjoyable, and feel as though many young readers will have interest in this book as well. It has precise vocabulary and content that is appealing for children ages 10 and up. The book is also very humorous and unique, and the varied sentence lengths are descriptive and easy to read. Overall, the book is catchy and you find it hard to put it down because you keep learning different surprises that flow naturally. After reading this book, I understand why this was a Newberry Medal winner. The book can be used within the classroom to show that all children have potential. This potential goes hand in hand with Zero since he got made fun of because "there is nothing inside his head." It turned out that he had a lot of ambition within him and wanted to do something with it. Students can learn that they can reach their fullest potential as well!
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Summary: Great Book!!!!!
Review: Holes is my favorite book of all. Where did the shoes come from? Why him? Why holes?! This book will keep you reading to find out more. THis book is about a boy named Stanley Yelnats who find himself in a mystery and curse. Camp Green Lake is not what it seems.You will definitely without a doubt love this book.
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Summary: Holes and Literary Merit
Review: Holes by Louis Sachar This book is a prime example of a book with Literary Merit. There are numerous aspects of the book which make it a book that is hard to put down. The characters in this book are unique and believable. The main characters in the book are adolescent boys. Their behavior is very similar to that of adolescent boys in the real world. The fact that all the boys had unique nicknames is also a correlation of real boys. Names like Zero, Armpit, X-Ray, and Magnet grab the readers' attention. Stanley was also falsely accused of theft, which sadly many of our youth has experienced. Another aspect is that the author develops theme and has an interesting point of view. A strong theme in the story is the Yelnats' family curse. This curse is a huge part of the story, the reader finds out why in the end. The character Stanley Yelnats' point of view in the story is funny, sad, and emotional. The way he got to Green Lake itself is rather hysterical. "I was walking home and the sneakers fell from the sky," 'he had told the judge.' "One hit me on the head." 'It had hurt too.' This is the curse of the Yelnats family. It is all due to Stanley's "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather." The author develops this curse in to a blessing at the end of the book.
All good books have a subtle major dramatic question. This book's question is "Why are the boys really digging holes?" This leads to another aspect, the pacing and style were appropriate to the content. Louis Sachar uses flashback quite often in this book. Not only to tell the story of Stanley Yelnats but also his great-great-grandfather and Kissing Kate. Another aspect is that the author uses understatement. At the end of the book the author writes to the reader "This is pretty much the end of the story. The reader probably still has some questions, but unfortunately, from here on in, the answers tend to be long and tedious."
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! As a future educator I would like to add a few comments on the audience and how a teacher might use this book in the classroom. The audience for this book could be fourth to sixth grade. Although I am a female and enjoyed this book, I think boys would love to read this book. The whole book is about a group of boys who have a friendship with one another. Adolescent boys, as I said earlier, can relate to the characters in the story.
I would use this book in my classroom as a read aloud. This book would be excellent for predicting and guessing. If a teacher would like to integrate this book, one way would be to read this book while discussing different environments. Holes states exceptional setting characteristics. Whether it is the temperature, or the animals, Louis Sachar really depicts the desert climate with excellent detail!
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Summary: SELOH
Review: In the book Holes by Louis Sachar there are many characters that the reader becomes interested in. These characters are all unique and are believable. Stanley Yelnats, the main character, has been wrongfully accused of a crime he did not commit. Now Stanley is being sent to Camp Green Lake, which is a correctional facility for boys. Stanley was convicted of theft, a crime he had not committed. This situation is something that is familiar with young children today. Since Stanley is the new guy at camp you learn about the characters as Stanley learns about them. Stanley quickly learns that the boys do not use their birth names at the camp, but they all use nicknames. Stanley learns a hard lesson when he does not call Armpit by his nickname. Stanley is shocked by what his friend confides in him while they are in the desert. Zero says, "Stanley I took your shoes". Those were the shoes that Stanley was convicted of stealing and the reason why he was at Camp Green Lake. The book consists of two underlying themes that go back and forth. The first theme is about Stanley at the camp and the second is the story about kissin Kate Barlow, who was a stagecoach thief one hundred years ago. These two stories that are being told make the reader very curious on how they will come together in the end. Throughout the book the sentence length is varied from short-spoken dialogue to long descriptive places that Stanley is discovering for the first time. The book offers many dramatic questions. Will Stanley leave or runaway from Camp Green Lake? How is Kate Barlow involved in this story? Will the curse that is on the Yelnats' family ever be lifted? The reader will develop questions and will find himself or herself buried in the novel.
Since children enjoy reading about older or same age children I would recommend this book for children nine years of age or older. The book can be used for silent sustained reading or integrated with math, health, and geography. This book could be paralleled with math in the aspect of geometry because Stanley's holes needed to be a certain depth and diameter. It may also be used with health because of the malnutrition and dehydration that Stanley and Zero go through while in the desert. The book may also be used while a teaching about deserts and climates during ageography lesson. As a whole I really enjoyed this book and I had the pleasure of reading to students ages nine through eleven over the summer. The students begged me to keep reading after time had exceeded and could not wait to hear more the next day. This book is one that could be appreciated by the child in all of us.
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Summary: Holes is Hot!
Review: Many people may think of fun and good times when they think of going to camp. However, its a different story for Stanley Yelnats when he gets sent to Camp Green Lake. At this camp he must watch for scorpions, rattlesnakes and yellow-spotted lizards while he digs holes in an old dried-up lake in 95 degree weather! No one would normally choose to attend this camp. In the book Holes, by Louis Sachar, Stanley Yelnats is accused of a crime he didn't commit and as he is "paying his debt to society" he finds himself in the middle of yet another sticky situation.
This book could definitely be called a "good book". It is overflowing with literary merit from cover to cover. The characters and setting are both unique and believeable. One can relate to not fitting in just like Stanley didn't fit in at school. He was often picked on and at the center of jokes because of his weight. Louis Sachar, being the skilled writer that he is, used vivid descriptions that made the reader feel as though they were in the book. "The shovel felt heavy in Stanley's soft, fleshy hands. He tried to jam it into the earth, but the blade banged against the ground and bounced off withought making a dent. The vibrations ran up the shaft of the shovel and into Stanley's wrist, making his bones rattle." (Sachar 26). While reading that passage, I could feel my own bones rattling!
Sachar also provided a dialogue that gave insight about the characters. X-Ray, Zero, Armpit and Squid were a few of the names of Stanley's friends at camp. Their names though wierd to hear, were actually representatives of the characteristics. As the story progressed and Stanley befriended the boys at the camp, the reader learned that things and people aren't always as they seem. The pacing and style of the book was very appropriate. The story moves from Stanley's present situation and smoothly takes you back 100 years to tell a story that adds to the already exciting plot. A final type of literary merit Sachar uses is understatement. Sachar ends the story by saying, "This is pretty much the end of the story. The reader probably still has some questions, but unfortunately, from here on in, the answers tend to be long and tedious." The reader is left to make their own conclusions about what they think happened in the book. I personally didn't appreciate the way the book ended but, all in all it was an excellent book.
People of all ages would like this book. It is more appropriate for students in 4th grade (9 years old)and higher. This book would be good to teach students about making predictions. It would also be useful in showing students how although people are different in many ways, they are also very much alike.
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Summary: Holes Review
Review: I really enjoyed reading the book Holes, by Louis Sachar! 10 year-old Stanley Yelnats is cursed with bad luck, ever since his 'no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather' stole Madame Zeroni's pig. Now Stanley is being accused of a crime he did not commit, and is sent to Camp Green Lake to "build his character." Stanley meets other boys at Camp Green Lake, including X-ray, Armpit, Zero, Squid, and BarfBag. These characters each have unique personalities and humorous nicknames that make them seem like real people.
At Camp Green Lake the boys are forced to dig a hole 5 feet wide by 5 feet deep every day, seven days a week. Throughout the book, the boys continue to dig holes, but they do not know why they are digging, or what they are looking for. If they find something that makes the Warden happy, they get the rest of the day off. The dramatic question of what the boys are digging for kept me hooked, and I couldn't put the book down until I found the answer. Holes is written with a very unique and interesting point of view. There are actually two stories woven together into one plot, one taking place in the present, and the other in the past. The main story line takes place in the present day with Stanley and Camp Green Lake. The second story line takes place in the past in the area of Camp Green Lake and involves Stanley's great-great-grandfather, Madame Zeroni, and Kissing Kate Barlow. As the book flips from past to present, many surprise observations can be made. These observations are subtle, but answer the many questions on the reader's mind.
Louis Sachar wonderfully took a complex concept and laid it out in a way that is easily understood by both children and adults. The use of understatement in this book makes the reader use their imagination to put the pieces of the puzzle together, in order to form the exciting outcome of this story. An example of understatement is illustrated in this quote from the end of Holes. "The reader probably still has some questions, but unfortunately, from here on in, the answers tend to be long and tedious. While Mrs. Bell, Stanley's former math teacher, might want to know the percent change in Stanley's weight, the reader probably cares more about the change in Stanley's character and self-confidence. But those changes are subtle and hard to measure. There is no simple answer." Louis Sachar makes the reader use their imagination to determine the outcome of many parts of this story. Everyone who reads this book may have a different concept of what happens in the end, which makes the book more interesting and mysterious.
I think that this book can be enjoyed by all readers, ages 9 and older. The humorous characters are easy to relate to and the complex plot hooks the reader from beginning to end. Teachers could use this book in the classroom, not only in Reading and Language Arts, but it can also be integrated into the Geography of the Texas desert. Also, in Math, this book could be used to calculate various word problems, which involve Stanley and his pals digging holes in the desert. I would use this book in the fourth or fifth grade classroom, because I think the students would really enjoy the great storyline.
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