December+Book+Review

December Book Review Holes By: Tess Fox

In the novel //Holes// by Louis Sachar there are several boys that are sent to Camp Green Lake for punishment. Before there used to be a lake at Camp Green, one of the biggest lakes in Texas, but now there isn’t one. There is only hot, dry sand. There they have to dig holes that are five feet deep and five feet wide in all directions. They are digging holes because the warden is looking for something and they don’t know about it. But, then later in the novel they start understand the mystery because Stanley finds a clue and he gives it to his friend X-ray. Then something bad happens and there is a big disaster. You’ll have to read //Holes// to find out.

The setting in the novel //Holes// takes place at a camp called Camp Green Lake. There is only hot dry sand and a lot of holes. The author chose to put the setting of the book at Camp Green Lake because the main idea is that there are boys that did something bad. They have to go somewhere bad to learn from their mistakes. Also because that is what the book was about and in every good story there must me a problem.

In the book the main character is Stanley Yelnats. He is at Camp Green Lake because one day a famous basketball player's shoes fell from the sky and he picked them up and then the police caught him. He either had the choice of going to jail or Camp Green Lake. In the beginning of the story Stanley is very overweight and he thinks that digging holes is hard. After a little while he loses some weight and he doesn’t think that is that hard now. Also, at the beginning of the story Stanley is a little bit of a bad kid but then later he fixes that after he digs 50 holes. If I could choose to be Stanley’s friend I would after he went to Camp Green Lake because after he was there he wasn’t so much of a bad kid and his attitude was better. I think that the author wrote Stanley to be the way he is because some characters have to struggle and that is what is happening to him.

I think that the theme/ message in this story is in the beginning of the story Stanley commits a crime and then he got punished my going to this camp. In the end Stanley becomes a better person by his attitude and by the way he acted. Also, I think that he changed because when he went to the camp he was in a hard situation and then he learned from his mistake. Also, the theme/message is that the good side always wins then the bad because like what happened to him he was in a bad situation then something good happened and then the good side won. I think that was mostly the theme/message in the book. One thing that I think proved that he that this is the theme is “I understand that you made some bad mistakes in your life. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Everyone makes mistakes. That doesn’t mean that you are a bad kid.” (Page 17)