Quotation: Unknown English Professor

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."

Newbery Winner 1998: Holes

For some reason, I refused to read Holes for the longest time. I judged the book by its cover, or perhaps by Sachar's other works (notably his Wayside School series) that I just don't like. I was sure the state of American children’s literature had fell hard now that Holes was a Newbery.

Worse still, I own Holes, but I kept it separate from my other children’s books so they would not be negatively influenced. What a wonderful foreshadowing of the issues Sachar tackles.

In a moment of weakness a few months ago, I reluctantly read the first line, “There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.” I’ve read it (the entire book that is) three more times since.

Sachar takes on some big issues — injustice, racial tensions and equality.

The issue of race is introduced and driven primarily through the following six quotations (in chronological order):

“…it took Stanley a moment to notice that one kid was white and the other black.”

“Stanley was thankful that there were no racial problems.”

“On the lake they were all the same reddish brown color—the color of dirt.

“God will punish you.”

“It’s against the law for a Negro to kiss a white woman.”

“Same old story..... The white boy sits around while the black boy does all the work.”

Strategically, Sachar uses the back-story of Kate Barlow (white) and Sam the onion man (black), their love, his murder and her revenge to introduce racial tensions in a manner less affronting to the reader than a full-on attack (chapter 26).

The story of Kate and Sam seems, on the surface, fanciful, which allows Sachar to more starkly present the nasty racial prejudices that existed 100 years ago. The reader accepts it, thinks I’m so glad I’m enlightened, and WHAM! Sachar hits you in the face in the next chapter. The escalation occurs between Stanley (white) and his group (white, black and hispanic) as Zero (black) digs part of Stanley’s hole each day in exchange for reading lessons.

The second quote above, from chapter 19, I felt was rather awkward, inserted primarily to foreshadow the racial tensions later on. It felt forced and drew me out of the story, but only briefly.

From chapter 37 to the end, Sachar paints a powerful picture of equality and as Stanley (white) and Zero (black) struggle together for survival and ultimately triumph over the evil at Camp Green Lake.

Sachar neatly stitches together the back-story and Stanley and Zero’s story with the line, “the great-great-grandson of Elya Yelnats carried the great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni up the mountain.”

Favorite lines

“This isn’t a girl-scout camp.” — Mr. Sir

“Stanley raised and lowered one shoulder.”

“His [Stanley’s] cap was stained with blood from his hands. He felt like he was digging his own grave.”

“That’s just what it is.” — Zero

Additional Resources

Wikipedia Summary

Buy Small Steps -- followup to Holes

Next week: Winner of 1972 — Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien

Rambler #8: Too Much News

ATTENTION: News agencies of the world. Way too much news has been crammed into way too few days this week.

Some of the too many events this week:

• Ed McMahon, 86, died

• Farrah Fawcett, 62, died

• Michael Jackson, 50, died

• Jeff Goldblum, 56, fell 60 feet to his death while filming on location in New Zealand. Several hours later, Mr. Goldblum informed Google that he was not dead, not in New Zealand and not shooting a new film

• South Carolina local boy and huge underdog Lucas Glover wins US Open

• US men's soccer team beats #1 ranked Spain 2-0 in a massive upset in the CONFED semi-final

• 9 killed, 76 injured in worst metro crash in Washington D.C.'s 33 year metro history

• South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford got lost on the Appalachian Trail and ended up Buenos Aries, Argentina, in the bed of Maria Shapur

I feel jipped. Barely had the Ed-McMahon-shaped waves of shock and sadness begun to roll over me when Farrah Fawcett barged onto the scene. And poor thing, she received a scant 17 minutes of shock and saddness before Michael Jackson completely shoved everyone off the front page.

What about ad sales, guys? What about days upon days of talking heads, cheesy charts and cloying photo montages? Did you learn nothing from Princess Diana? You guys milked that for over a month of 24-7 coverage because you didn't crowd the plate. If you had planned this right, you could have rode the wave through Christmas.

And someone obviously got carried away with let's-kill-a-bunch-of-famous-people day, as shown by Jeff Goldblum's untimely demise, then un-demise. He's lucky, though. I heard he got lost looking for Mordor and ended up somewhere around Buenos Aries, wherever that is.

Quotation: Flannery O'Connor

"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."

Rambler #7: Hummingbot

My son got his first transformer the other day. Nothing fancy, one of those dollar impulse buys in the checkout line. I don't even think it was a Transformers transformer; it was that cheap.

It came out of the box shaped like a robot. After watching it transform into a truck, my son looked up and said, "Cool! Can you make it into a hummingbird?"

"Um, no."

The toy was quickly discarded.

Quotation: Mark Twain (or Samuel Clemens, whichever you prefer)

"Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."

Rambler #6: Helen

To the best of my recollection, the following is a true story from my days working at an unnamed bookstore….

Register duty from 4-6 on a weekday is the worst. The afternoon shoplifter is gone so I’m bored. Technically, I’m not supposed to read; I’m supposed to straighten. But I’m done with that so I’m sneaking pages from the latest Grisholm bestseller and scanning for my boss.

Then she shows up. Let’s call her Helen.

Helen plops a book on the counter and ripples run from her arms down out of sight and threaten alerting the local seismic activity center. Her black sweat suit was quite probably from a spray can. Trying not to stare was futile; a car wreck to be sure.

Helen says nothing. Instead, she shifts. Her left foot, unable to withstand the onslaught from above, urges the weight, with monumental effort that comes in times of great duress, off onto the trembling right foot.

This high-stakes game of seesaw makes Helen look like a warning buoy near some dangerous shoals (a large warning buoy covered in black spray paint).

Helen’s eyes shot wildly about. Her brain is unable to focus anywhere longer than the moment it takes to receive the impulse and fire a response to move on. Receive-fire-receive-fire.

I’m still thinking about the afternoon shoplifter, and Helen’s frenetic action could easily be considered suspicious. But I’m totally confident Helen is incapable shoplifting. She cannot focus on a single item long enough to decide if it’s worth the risk of lifting before her brain fires and she moves on to the next item. [Ooh, a cd…ooh, a calendar… ooh chocolate]. It’s a wonder she’s buying anything. Her brain’s synapses are firing at blazing speeds, yet neither considering nor meditating on what is being fired at or the consequences of that firing.

Her brain pauses on a tin of breath mints, an impulse buy. If ever an impulse buyer existed, Helen is one. She grabs the mints and shakes them hard — up, down, up, down — real fast. She sets them back in their place. The synapse has fired.

“$19.85 is your total tonight,” I say.

“Ssssshhhhh!,” she leans in close and continues in a fierce whisper, casting a fearful glance toward a man nearby. He stood with his back to us, oblivious.

The hissing continues. “Don’t let him hear; he’ll have a cow!” Helen even used one hand to cover up her mouth when she said "cow".

I nod. I’m a little nervous now. “you have a great night ma’am”.

Snatching the receipt, Helen wedged it into one of her pants pockets. So it’s not just paint after all, I thought.

Helen need not worry that her husband will ever find that receipt. The great pressing outward against the threads of cloth will forever grip the receipt. She need only to avoid removing her pants and her secret will forever remain kept; Dr. Atkins help us all.