Insomniac's blog

In the book Holes, Stanley writes his mother from Camp Green Lake and tells her how much fun he is having. He writes to her of the nice lake and how he enjoys swimming in it. I decided to write one of Stanley's letters...

Dear Mom and Dad,
Wow! What a great first day at camp! All of the cabins are in a circle with a big bonfire in the middle. Don't worry Mom, I'll be careful around the fire. I took a shower tonight and then went to the rec room to play air hockey with a few of the guys. Tomorrow we are going on a nature hike. There is a store on the way where Mr. Pendanski (that's my counselor) says we can buy some snacks. I was worried because I didn't bring any money, but he said that it was okay because the camp gives us all $5 a week if we help with cleaning up around the camp. It is not a lot of clean up work though. We just got to take out the trash and sweep up a little. Mr. Pendanski and Mr. Sir (he's the guard here) said that on Friday the camp has game night where everyone plays horseshoes, hide and go seek in the dark, and all kinds of weird fun games. Mr. Sir is really cool! When I got here today I didn't know what to expect. But he said to me, "Stanley, we know you are a good boy. Sometimes good boys just make bad decisions. If you abide by our rules you will have a good time here." The rules are good rules too. We have to listen when others talk, go to group counseling sessions, write a letter of apology to those we have wronged, and always lend a helping hand to others.
I met the Warden after dinner tonight. She is really nice. She told me that she wants all of us boys to relax, have some fun, and work on our moral character. She thinks that if we get time to just be boys then we won't get into any more trouble. I like her a lot.
I got to go now. A few of the guys want me to make smores with them and then we are going to tell ghost stories. I love you and Dad both. Don't worry about me one bit. This is going to be the easiest and funnest 18 months of my life!
Love,
Stanley

As I was reading through Holes by Louis Sachar, I tried to think about what age group and gender this book would appeal to most. I know it is on the Boy's List that we received in class, and I agree that boys would probably like to read this book. Especially if it was a choice between Holes or Anne of Green Gables. Since that first week or so of class I have been trying to figure out why boys who loved to read, upon entering middle school, would turn into non-readers. I do not think you can make a direct case for any one reason, but there are probably several factors to why middle school boys read less than girls.One of the reasons may be that boys in middle school become distinctly seperated from their female classmates. In elementary school, boys and girls have gym classes together, play after school sports together, and take virtually all their classes together. In middle school, the seperation of the sexes occurs. Sports teams are split by gender, gym classes by gender, and elective courses are often knowingly or unknowingly split by gender. Girls do tennis in the fall, cheerleading, volleyball, and take home economics and art classes. Boys do football, baseball, spring tennis, and take shop classes. This seperation of the genders leads to views on what is "girlie" and what is not. Unfortunately, reading has often been in the "girlie" category.
Books such as Holes and No More Dead Dogs do try to swing boys back into reading. The Harry Potter series, the Series of Unfortunate Events and other books appeal to a wide spectrum of pupils, male and female.
Holes is defintely a book that boys could get into. Most of the characters are young boys of middle school age and the few that are not do not have a significant role in the book, besides the characters of the Warden, Mr. Sir, and Mr. Pendanski. Not only would the characters appeal to middle school boys, but the book also has a complex and entertaining plot, action and adventure, realistic drama without the romanticism, and a satisfying ending.
However, Holes is not a book just for boys. Girls have enjoyed Holes also. This is just proof that a good book does not neccesarily have to have a specific minute audience as long as it is interesting and is well-written. Holes is just that.

After reading Holes, I tried to think about which character I identified with most. I could not really be any of the characters. Usually when I read a book I can easily identify with at least one character, or an aspect of a character. Even when I become the "fly on the wall" I still can identify with certain personality traits in the characters. In the books in which I do not, I usually do not finish reading them. I have to be invested personally in a book somehow in order to have it keep my interest.
However, this was not the case with Holes. I found myself really getting into the story. It is a fantastic story about friendship, integrity, responsibilities, and perserverance. Maybe I became more invested in this story because I highly value all of these attributes in people. The main characters, Stanley Yelnats and Zero, have these qualities. But, I still did not feel like I could have been them. Instead though, I felt like they may have been friends. This is unusual for me because I usually do not take on the characters of books as friends. I felt as though I was almost like a third person throughout the book, especially on Stanley and Zero's trek through the desert and the mountain.
Reading Holes was a new kind of reading experience for me. I had to stretch a bit more in order to place myself in the story, but once I did I found it highly engaging. To be perfectly honest, I have not had to take on a new reading perspective for a book since I read Notes From Underground.

I have finished reading Holes by Louis Sachar and thought about how the book compares to the movie. I think the movie follows the book fairly closely. There were some liberties that the movie took, but for the most part the story was closely followed. For a review and information on the movie, follow this link.
Holes would be a great book to teach in a film as literature comparative course in either middle school or maybe 9th grade. This movie would be a great way to show the concept of flashback in literature as in appears several times in th book. Sometimes flashback is easier to understand when it is visual. For readers who have a hard time visualizing when reading, this movie would make a great tool in teaching the book.
I thought that the actors used in the movie "Holes" were well chosen. Sigourney Weaver played the warden and managed to pull off just the right combination of meanness and manipulation that the book character had. Jon Voight played the role of Mr. Sir, the main camp prison guard and Tim Blake Nelson played the part of Mr. Pendanski, otherwise known as Mom, the camp counselor. Whoever did the casting for these characters did a fantastic job. Both Voight and Nelson fit the roles perfectly. Of course though, I did watch the movie before I read the book. This may have clouded my own visualization of the characters.
As far as the camp prisoners go, I was a little disappointed with Shia LaBeouf as Stanley Yelnats. He just was not what I had pictured in my head. However, LaBeouf did do a great job of getting Stanley's awkwardness and shyness down.
One part in the movie that I did wish was in the book was when the Warden's grampa, Trout Walker, told the Warden to dig when she was a young girl. She complained about having to dig and his response was, "Well, that's just too damn bad!" It was by far one of the funniest moments in the movie. Too bad it did not appear in the book.
Overall though, I must say that I thought the movie was fantastic. It is a wonderful way to help pupils visualize and help them see what others' interpretation of the book is.

I am about a third of the way through the YA novel Holes by Louis Sachar. As I was reading through I noticed that Sachar sets the novel up in a different chapter pattern than what I am used to seeing. Instead of either starting out with small chapter lengths and working up to longer chapters or having chapters of approxiamately the same length, Sachar instead varies his chapter lengths. Some chapters are no more than a few paragraphs long while others are three to five pages. I also noticed that these small or shortened chapters are consistently spaced in the book, at least up to the point in which I have read. For example, the first chapter is a page and a half, the second a few paragraphs, the third is five pages long. This type of chapter pattern seems relatively consistent throughout the book.
I began to think about why Sachar would chapter his book in this manner. There are a few reasons as to why I think he set it up as such. One reason may be to encourage slow or poor readers to keep going with the text. English teachers love to assign chapters to read and if a teacher assigns chapter 1-3 for one reading, then the kids may get discouraged until they realize that the length of the chapter is only about eight pages.
Another reason why I think Sachar chaptered his book in this matter was for dramatic elements. If a teacher should decide to read this book aloud in class, then the sensical place to stop would be at the end of a chapter. This end of the chapter stop would help add to the pupils' interest in that the short chapters usually provide background information on the characters or plot and sometimes the short chapters address potential questions the reader may have. I am curious to see if Sachar continues with these short chapters as a break from the story or for clarification for the reader.
I think chaptering a book this way is a fantastic idea. It encourages slower reading pupils to continue reading while answering questions that the advanced reader may have.

I started reading Holes by Louis Sachar this weekend. The main character, Stanley Yelnats, is put into a work camp for juvenile offenders. I decided to take a look into how the state of Michigan treats juvenile offenders. A state website had information on "boot camps" for juvenile offenders and the state seems to strongly support such programs. I wonder though, exactly how closely these facilities are monitored. If the facilities are anything like the one Stanley is put in, then Michigan needs to look into a better system.
Another area that I thought I should check out is what do these offenders do while in camps and prisons? Many of them perform public service jobs which are beneficial to the community and to the offender. Perhaps Michigan is doing a good job of keeping on eye on both criminals and the facilities that house them.
One area in the book that bothered me is that the facility that Stanley is in, Camp Green Lake, is not closely monitored by the state. The juvenile offenders are subjected to horrible working conditions, bad food, inadequate supplies, and reduced to almost slave labor. Yet through it all Stanley and his friends manage to keep a sense of humor. As the description on the back of my copy of the book says, "...this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment--and redemption".