Holes - Softcover

Sachar, Louis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408809370 ISBN 13: 9781408809372

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2010

Synopsis

Paperback. Pub Date :2010-06-01 Pages: 320 Language: English Publisher: Bloomsbury UK When Stanley Yelnats is sent to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility for a crime he did not commit. life becomes much more of a challenge. First of all he has to dig a hole (as deep as a man) a day in the baking Texas heat. looking for who knows what. Then he has to avoid cruel Mr Sir and the menacing warden. Will Stanley survive in this hostile environment In this 10th anniversary edition of Holes. Louis Sachar has also leant his knowledge and expertise of roughing it out in the Texan desert in Stanley Yelnats Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake. Imagine your misfortune if. like Stanley Yelnats. you found yourself the victim of a miscarriage of justice and interned in a juvenile correctional facility. This witty and utterly essential guide to survival is spiced with lots of informa...

About this title

Review:

"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." Such is the reigning philosophy at Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention facility where there is no lake, and there are no happy campers. In place of what used to be "the largest lake in Texas" is now a dry, flat, sunburned wasteland, pocked with countless identical holes dug by boys improving their character. Stanley Yelnats, of palindromic name and ill-fated pedigree, has landed at Camp Green Lake because it seemed a better option than jail. No matter that his conviction was all a case of mistaken identity, the Yelnats family has become accustomed to a long history of bad luck, thanks to their "no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather!" Despite his innocence, Stanley is quickly enmeshed in the Camp Green Lake routine: rising before dawn to dig a hole five feet deep and five feet in diameter; learning how to get along with the Lord of the Flies-styled pack of boys in Group D; and fearing the warden, who paints her fingernails with rattlesnake venom. But when Stanley realizes that the boys may not just be digging to build character--that in fact the warden is seeking something specific--the plot gets as thick as the irony.

It's a strange story, but strangely compelling and lovely too. Louis Sachar uses poker-faced understatement to create a bizarre but believable landscape--a place where Major Major Major Major of Catch-22 would feel right at home. But while there is humor and absurdity here, there is also a deep understanding of friendship and a searing compassion for society's underdogs. As Stanley unknowingly begins to fulfill his destiny--the dual plots coming together to reveal that fate has big plans in store--we can't help but cheer for the good guys, and all the Yelnats everywhere. (Ages 10 and older) --Brangien Davis

Review:

'Louis Sachar is one of the few masters of American fiction' Independent on Sunday 'A story of friendship with the cleverest plot twists, and descriptions so vivid you can feel the heat of Stanley's desert prison burning off the page ... A total must-read' The Times 'Unmistakably powerful' Philip Pullman 'One of those instant classics that adults, as well as children, will thoroughly enjoy' Independent on Sunday

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1408809370
• ISBN 13: 9781408809372
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320