Alex Dombrowski

Alex Dombrowski

Holes

Louis Sachar

Realist- Fiction

Holiday

56

 

 

1.      Currently, I’m reading Holes, by Louis Sachar. In the novel, Stanley has just arrived at Camp Green Lake. The camp is a juvenile detention center where young criminals have to dig 5ft by 5ft holes. Unfortunately, Stanley was sent to the camp for a crime he did not commit. One day Stanley was walking, when a pair of shoes fell from the sky. He didn’t know they belonged to anyone so he took them. They ended up belonging to a professional baseball player who was auctioning them off for a charity event. Later that day he was arrested and sent to Camp Green Lake for the crime. When he arrives, he learned that digging the holes was quite a challenge. He gets blisters within the first few hours and realizes the dried lake gets extremely hot with no shade. The delinquents get water every few hours but Stanley drank his quickly. This taught him to preserve his water. After he has dug his first hole, his roommates tell him the worst isn’t until the second hole. They also warn him about the yellow-spotted lizards. These lizards will kill you with one bite. When he starts his second hole, all of his muscles ache. For Stanley this makes digging much more difficult than on the first day. Sachar tells the story through Stanley’s point of view. This makes it much easier to connect to Stanley.

2.      I am enjoying Holes right now, even though I’m only an eight through the book. I really want to see what happens next. I think that many interesting things could happen with the plot, Stanley could try to escape from the camp or plan a search for answers about why they are digging holes. If either of those happened, I would not want to put down the novel. I think the theme is honesty; this makes the book interesting because Stanley is a very honest character in the story. Even though the writing style isn’t unique, it is still a very good read. I think it’s interesting how Sachar jumps from Stanley’s ancestors to him at the camp. I have never read another book by this author; I would what his other books are about because this book is so good.

3.      I found it hard to find the theme in this book because I haven’t gotten that far into it yet. So far I think the theme is honesty. The theme is honesty. Being honest will get you far in the camp. Stanley is also very honest, he shows this when he is being tried for stealing the shoes. His family cannot afford a lawyer so he just tells the truth about how didn’t actually steal the shoes, he stumbled upon them and didn’t realize they belonged to someone. He was honest to the court even though it didn’t pay off. Also, you have to be honest at the camp. If you find something in the hole you have to report it to a supervisor, instead of taking it for yourself. I think the farther I get into the book, the clearer the theme will be.  

4.      My favorite character is Stanley because he is so honest and a nice person after being bullied in school. I also respect him for not giving up when everything went wrong with the shoes. Also he didn’t give up when he tried digging the first hole and had a lot of difficulties. Stanley tries to see the positive things in what has happened to him. For example, when he is going to Camp Green Lake, he hopes he can make friends with the other kids because he didn’t have any back home. I really hope Stanley becomes tougher during his stay at the camp. Currently he is pushed around and has really gotten his rank from the other guys. If Sachar has good character development, Holes will become a much more exciting novel.

5.      My least favorite character so far is Mr. Sir; he is one of the directors at the camp. Mr. Sir is a nasty man who tries to intimidate Stanley when he arrives. He does this by telling him that if he tries to escape he will die in a matter of hours from the heat. Also he tells Stanley that he has the only water in the area. Mr. Sir isn’t very encouraging either, the counselors are very supportive and want the boys to turn their lives around, but Mr. Sir just tries to scare them.

6.      I predict that Stanley will try to escape the camp because of the awful digging and have to survive in the treacherous conditions. Also, his friends from his cabin might go with him so they have a better chance of surviving. If Stanley does this then the book will become even more exciting than it already is!