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February 12, 2006

Holes - Louis Sachar

I think a lot of adults are finally coming round to realising that they like reading books that are primarily aimed at children. The "Harry Potter Effect" as I'll call it, was kick-started with the publication of J.K. Rowling's books about the boy wizard. Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" luckily came out at around the same time and tapped into this vein. And now that we have a whole series of Narnia films on the way adults are going back to the source and reading CS Lewis again. JRR Tolkien has never really gone away of course, and I'm not sure if you'd really put his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in the childrens section anyway.

Recently another childrens book also did a crossover to the adult world; "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon went for both markets with different : covers for each. Terry Pratchett has been writing child friendly fiction for years, but only recently pitched some of his Discworld novels deliberately to younger readers, and won awards for "The Wee Free Men", a book that is really of no less complexity than recent adult titles like "Going Postal"

Some of my favourite reads of recent years have been kids books. The geek world embraced "The Princess Bride", a novel and also of course a fantastic film. It's about giants, and princesses, and magic, but somehow, the whole package of characters and situations transcends the fantasy genre to become a story that anyone can enjoy. Of course, it has dialogue that only William Goldman could write which helps a lot. Who can forget the immortal "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father: prepare to die!" Inconceivable!

Living in a house of girls, I am surrounded of course by Barbie and now Bratz, by Disney and Pixar. But probably the most watched and read fiction is that produced by Jacqueline Wilson. Today the BBC is reporting that her books are the most borrowed from British libraries for the third year running. She beats any author of adult fiction. Kids love these books, and there are no princesses or fairies to be found. There are children in foster homes (Tracey Beaker is her most popular end enduring creation, with a long running TV series), children with abusive parents, disabled children. The book I read recently "Vicky Angel" about a girl whose best friend dies in a car crash. It's a heart-wrenching story, as the girl's mental state degenerates, and her parent's don't even know what is wrong. Children lap these stories up, and are being prepared for the world, and the emotional rollercoaster of life, much better than we ever were.

So, I finally come to Holes. This is another children's story that I think adults should also read. It tackles themes like racism, crime and punishment, homelessness and mental problem. It has really evil adults, malajusted kids, and takes place in a dried out lakebed in a desert. Perhaps this doesn't sound very promising, or even suitable kids fare, but it's also got hope, redemption and friendship. It's a fantastic story where all the strands gradually tie together into one perfect knot.

A brief glance at the amazon entry will tell you it's the story of Stanley Yelnats, a boy who is wrongly accused of stealing a pair of sneakers. He gets sent to Camp Greenlake juvenile detention center out in the desert. The psychotic guards there force each boy to dig a hole five feet deep and five feet wide every day, in the hot sun. They are told it will give them character, but it's fairly obvious that some kind of buried treasure is being sought.

Stanley is a likeable loser, from a long line of luckless Yelnats. Throughout the book, his family history is related, and gradually, we see that things are coming to a conclusion, where if Stanley can do the right thing, his family curse will be lifted.

This is a fairy tale with no fairies, a morality tale with no preaching. It's heart-warming and laugh-out-loud funny, sad and frightening, but mostly it's fiendishly clever. When you get to the end you'll be smacking your head that you didn't work out all the plot loose-ends Sachar builds up.

Read it, make your children read it, then get the recent DVD release of the film of the book. It's not as good, but it's still pretty fun.

Posted by se71 at February 12, 2006 10:31 AM

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