#tbt: Holes by Louis Sachar

Image: Macmillan

Happy Thursday! #tbt features Holes by Louis Sachar. Holes was published in August of 1998, so it is twenty-five-years-old this month. Stanley Yelnats III's family is cursed and the curse has finally landed on him. Wrongly accused of stealing a pair of valuable sneakers, Stanley is headed to Camp Greenlake. This isn't camp. It's a juvenile detention facility. And there isn't a lake. That dried up over a hundred years ago. The juveniles detained there must did holes in the hot, Texas sun all day. They are looking for something, but they don't know what. The Warden is brutal and on a mission.

The narrative moves back and forth in time as well as between the U.S. and Latvia. The cast of characters is large and colorful and connected to each other. It's wry and funny, especially the dialogue between the boys.

Holes won the 1999 Newbery as well as the National Book Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction. It was named to numerous state book awards lists and the New York Times Notable Books list. It was adapted for film by Disney in 2003 and is remarkable in its faithfulness to the book. It's no wonder, because Mr. Sachar wrote the screenplay! He also had a cameo in the film. Holes is one of those rare Newbery winners that is also popular with kids.

Happy reading!