The book I read is called Holes. Holes about a boy who is accused of a crime that he is not responsible for. This boy is named Stanley Yelnats. When something bad happens, he and his family blame it on their no-good-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. When he is sent to Camp Green Lake, a prison camp, he has to get used to a lot of things- manual labor and mean people. Just with those two things what kind of community do you think this is?

Stanley is smart, kind and brave. Stanley is smart because he is trying to stay out of fights when he knows it will just get him into more trouble. He is not like the other kids at the Camp Green Lake. He is not all bad, because as I said before he didn’t even commit a crime. He isn’t scary; the kids there just think he is because he is so big. It makes him feel uncomfortable because that is not the true him. Stanley is kind because not only does he teach his friend Zero to read and recognize the alphabet, but he also becomes a true friend to him and they have some hard times together. Stanley is brave because he has a lot of problems in this book and he always takes them head-on like a bull spearing his problems with his horns.

One interesting part was when Stanley was just getting used to the way of life at Camp Green Lake and he was thinking that all the kids were bad and that he was better than all of them. Eventually, he started to see the good in all of them. Another eye-opening part is when Stanley was hearing everybody’s criminal stories. That was interesting to me because it was fun to hear everyone’s backstory because it was taking a break from hearing about Stanley. I could tell that it was also fascinating for Stanley because Louis Sachar described the moment so well. Additionally, a part that helped me form a picture in my mind was when Stanley told all his friends his story about how he had “stolen” the shoes. I could picture the shoes falling from the sky and him not knowing what to do except running home with the shoes so his dad could recycle them. When Stanley was done everybody started laughing and it was as if their crimes were huge and his was tiny. Some beautiful language that Sachar uses to describe Stanley was, “that his hands and muscles weren’t the only thing that had hardened his heart had hardened too”. This happened right after Zero asked Stanley to teach him to read and Stanley didn’t want to do it at first. Even after these good things about Stanley, I probably still would not want him to be my friend.

This book is an easy favorite. Top 15 on my list. You know how much I liked this book? I would consider writing a letter to Louis Sachar. That’s how much I loved this book. It always makes you think what is going to happen next in Stanley’s imprisoned life. This book reminds me of Pilfer Academy. The two books are alike because they both have two kids that hate what their life is so they make a change. Zero and Stanley make a lot of changes to their life. This book is an easy five stars.