Holes – Louis Sachar

Holes – Book Review

Holes is a book written by Louis Sachar. It is about a boy named Stanley Yelnats. Wherever Stanley goes, bad luck seems to follow him. This bad luck is not really his fault. It started with his dirty, no-good, great-great-great-great-grandfather, who was said to have stolen a pig. Because of this, Stanley’s family believes they are cursed. However, every curse can be broken, and Stanley is trying to break his.

Short Recap

Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake for “stealing” a pair of shoes. The truth is that the shoes fall from the sky and Stanley just picks them up. Even though he is innocent, no one believes him.

At Camp Green Lake, the boys are forced to dig holes every day. Each hole must be five feet wide and five feet deep. The adults say this is to build character. After a while, Stanley realizes that digging is not really about character. The Warden is using the boys to look for treasure.

Later in the story, things become very dangerous, and Stanley runs away from the camp. What happens next is exciting, but you will have to read the book to find out.

Favorite Chapters

One of my favorite chapters is Chapter 9. This is when Stanley gets the nickname “Caveman.” This chapter is important because it shows that Stanley is finally accepted and starts making friends at Camp Green Lake.

Short Recap of the Chapter 9

After a long and tiring day of digging, Stanley goes into the Wreck Room and sees the other boys from his group. As he walks over, he trips on a big guy. The boy shouts, “Watch it!”, Stanley is too tired to care, so he answers back, “You watch it!”. The big guy gets angry and almost starts a fight. Luckily, the boys from Group D stop him and say, “Caveman is cool”. This means that Stanley does not want any trouble. At first, Stanley thinks Caveman is the big guy’s name, but he soon realizes that the boys are calling him Caveman. Stanley smiles because he knows he has been accepted.

This chapter is very wholesome because Stanley finally feels like he belongs. Before Camp Green Lake, he was bullied at school because he was overweight. This moment makes Stanley feel proud of himself.

Last chapter

My second favorite chapter is the last chapter of the book. This chapter shows that bad people do not always get a happy ending. Stanley’s lawyer proves that Stanley is innocent. The Warden also gets punished and has to sell the land because Camp Green Lake does not have the correct files for Zero. I really enjoy this chapter because it shows how bad people got punished, for me it was really satisfying.

Lesson learned

Even though this book is a fictional story, aiming to entertain readers, we can get a lot of meaningful lessons from this book.

• Don’t judge a book by its cover: In this book we are presented with a character named Mr. Pendanski. At the beginning of the story we see how nice he is to the other boys in the tent meanwhile he acts cruel to Zero, making fun of him because Zero can’t read. This shows how he is nice to other boys but not Zero, showing on the outside he is nice, meanwhile inside he is cruel and mean.

• Say no to racism: We can clearly see how people in the camp such as the warden, Mr. Sir, Mr. Pendanski treated the boys that are light-skinned (or white) normally, meanwhile they often treated Zero unfairly such as calling him dumb. In case you don’t know, treating people unfairly because of skin color is also illegal, this shows that people in Camp Green Lake are being racist to Zero.

• Friendship and loyalty: In the book we can see how Zero almost died of exhaustion, but instead of leaving him Stanley carried him up the mountain so he can drink water, at the same time breaking the curse that his great great great grandfather gave his family.

Personal thoughts

I really like this book because it tells me about an exciting adventure of Stanley trying to dig out the secrets of Camp Green Lake. The fact that Louis Sachar reflects the past of Camp Green Lake and connects them with present events really make Holes an amazing story to read. Overall this book gives you a thrilling adventure connecting the past with the present. Personally I would recommend this to all ages as the language is not too hard to understand and still retold the story greatly. 5 star for Holes and Louis Sachar he has created the greatest book I have ever read.