Holes by Louis Sachar

Holes is a wonderful novel about a boy named Stanley Yelnats who gets sent to Camp Green Lake for being accused of stealing tennis shoes. Camp Green Lake is a camp for boys who get into trouble and the camp is an alternative for going to jail. At the camp, the boys are expected to dig holes every single day and this is suppose to build character. When Stanley gets to camp, he starts to fit in with the other boys and he starts to see how things are run around the camp. Stanley was told by the Warden that if he found anything interesting while digging, he was to bring it to the Warden and if she liked it, he would get a day off from digging. One day, Stanley finds a gold tube with the initials KB and the Warden likes it very much. She wants the boys to keep digging in the same area to see if there is anything else. As the days go on, Stanley begins to question why exactly is he digging. He realizes that the boys are not digging to build character; they are digging to uncover something. Now Stanley has to figure out what the Warden is looking for and what the boys are trying to uncover.

This would be an exciting book for fourth or fifth graders to read. They will enjoy the mysterious aspect to the storyline and it will be a hard book for students to put down because you just want to keep reading to see what happens next. To use this book in the classroom, one thing it would be good for is to talk about friendships and accepting one another. Stanley did not have any friends and he is overweight. When he gets to camp, the boys accept him, pretty much right away and this makes Stanley feel good. All the boys had a nickname and within a few days, they gave one to Stanley too. With this, teachers could stress the importance of accepting one another and how it makes others feel when you do in fact accept people who are different than you.