Louis Sachar

Winner of the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award! This #1 New York Times bestselling, modern classic in which boys are forced to dig holes day in and day out is now available with a splashy new look. Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption. Includes a double bonus: an excerpt from Small Steps, the follow-up to Holes, as well as an excerpt from Louis Sachar’s new middle-grade novel, Fuzzy Mud. "A smart jigsaw puzzle of a novel." --The New York Times WINNER OF THE BOSTON GLOBE-HORN BOOK AWARD A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE CHILDREN'S BOOK SELECTED FOR NUMEROUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR AND ALA HONORS

Holes

Louis Sachar        

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

ooo my first taste of horror and excitement

Emily

Wes Michaud

i wold rate it a 3 stars  if it was i book i read to my self but what made it a 4 star for me was my Science teacher  because he did so good with voices for the  different characters so the story is more of a 3 but i had to give a star for my science teacher and his voices

Vicky  Nuñez 

This book was just as amazing as I thought it would be.

Sophie P.

one of the best middle-grade books I've ever read in my life so read it

for a children's book, this is a banger!!! the story is not that special but enjoy it very much. worth picking this up.

ayoni

Meagan Fischer 

A really good book that I read in maybe 6th grade. Wouldn't have read it on my own but glad I did.

Raven K

This book gets better and better everytime I read it.

AMAZING! Brought back so much childhood nostalgia when I read it as a kid and now later on I could fully connect pieces of the book together and understand it more.

Eloise Hill

Briar's Reviews

Many moons ago in my youth, the movie adaption of this book was a staple in my elementary school. Shockingly, we were never forced to read the novel, but lucky for me as an adult I finally found the book and decided to pick it up.

This book is so fun and would have been an excellent classic read back in my school days. Regardless, this book is still fun as an adult. Middle graders can enjoy the fun, learn a few lessons, and try to patch together the mystery behind the story as they read along.

I want to read the sequel (I never knew there was one!) and I will definitely want to pick up more books by Louis Sachar in the future. This book is a gem for middle grade readers who want a fun story that also has a great lesson about honesty.

Three out of five stars.

Jacob Salyer

Emma Valkyova

I enjoyed this book. It was an easy read that wasnt hard to understand. I liked the plot however it took way to long for the actual plot to start and then it felt very rushed and really fast. I propably will not be reading the second book.

Kirsten Simkiss

Honestly, Holes is such a classic. I remember reading this as a kid and then later getting to see the movie. Still, it had been years since I'd last read it and it was really fun to go back and reread it. I'm glad this isn't one of those books that I read as a kid and I no longer enjoyed as an adult.

I actually picked up some different nuances than I had as a kind while I was reading it as an adult. This book is as much an adventure story as it is a social commentary and I don't think I was as aware of what Sachar was trying to comment on about the camp's purpose in society and the different reasons why kids wind up in places like this. I don't think it sank in as much for me back then as it did now. Now, I know just how much of an impact all these little things have on a person whereas ten year old me was more along the lines of blissful ignorance.

And god bless this book for not speaking down to the reader. So often I find that I feel patronized when reading books meant for middle grade and children and it makes me want to riot. It is SO unpleasant. There isn't even a hint of that in this book and I love it.

I also love that in this book, these people are brought together because that's just the way life was. Some got put there because they made bad choices, some people did the right thing and got punished for it, and some people are just trying to get by with what life's handed to them. This book is one that doesn't ever promise that life is going to be fair and good if you're fair and good - although a family curse doesn't help things much either. Sometimes, all it takes to screw up your day is a dose of bad luck. This book isn't exactly realistic. It has it's own dose of fairy tale craziness to it. However, it also shows you that sometimes you just have to push through the bad things in life to get to the good things and I think that's an important thing for anyone of any age to remember.

Overall, I definitely would recommend this book to others. I also recommend this movie because it's such a great adaptation of the book. It really pays to have the source author help write your screenplay.

Mercy K

** spoiler alert **
           It's boring. Barely anything happens. I am the action packed types of books person. Like the Gallagher girls series. If you like action I recommend that.

With connections (HRW library)

Ashley Wendt

I enjoyed that more than I thought I would! I remember seeing bits & pieces of the movie when I was younger and it never seemed like something I would enjoy reading. I couldn’t even remember much of the plot when I started, so it was nice going into it without much knowledge of what it was about. I definitely appreciated some parts of this book more than others!

Ella

Sian Wadey

I had to read this as part of my English Class in my lower years at secondry school, and I really loved it. The story was interesting, oringinal, and had a great moral for children. I loved the characters and the plot was exciting, it seemed a fairly traditional idea but was twisted to fit modern times. A great kids novel, but I would recommend it to adults too.

Lee Yi Hsean

Although 'Holes' is a simply written book, I was quite impressed with it. I definitely wasn't expecting the plot twist. The author masterfully incorporated stories from the past into the book, and I quite enjoyed the switches from the past to present as it flows along neatly with the story at hand. I think every child should read this book at least once in their life. Trust me, it's worth your time.

i wold rate it a 3 stars if it was i book i read to my self but what made it a 4 star for me was my Science teacher because he did so good with voices for the different characters so the story is more of a 3 but i had to give a star for my science teacher and his voices

Vilde

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it's like reading and imagining the movie adaptation of the book whilst reading; but as the author also wrote the screenplay to the movie, I think that is kinda expected.

Ken Yuen

This is my first time reading a book from Louis Sachar since the Wayside school series as a kid. He's till funny and witty and strange in all the right ways in novel form. You know, for a story about a hellish desert prison for kids, the book never loses the humor and bizarreness of it all.

I really like the friendship between Stanley and Zero, who is silent and mysterious for most of the story. I was surprised to encounter the touch of race issues too. Also liked the parallel stories between the past and present

Paige M Neylon

Loved it so much I've read it officially 3 times already--soon enough 4. I love it; I can't express that enough!

allison moler

read after already reading the sequel, not good

Tasha Dykstra

read this a really long time ago have reread many times.

Nick Bicko

Innerhalb von 24 Stunden verschlungen. 
Ein klassisches Jugendbuch, zu dem ich bereits den Disney-Film kannte und erst kürzlich über das Buch gestolpert bin. 
Spannendes Setting, gut eingeflochtene Background-Story und witzige Charaktere.

Holes

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