Holes by Louis Sachar

I generally have no involvement in the selection of titles for bookclub. This is deliberate; I don't want the responsibility for an unpopular book. But this was an exception. We borrowed 'Holes' from the library for my kids to read; and I couldn't put it down. Since they wouldn't even pick it up, I knew it would have to come home again via bookclub.

I think this is a genuinely brilliant book. It unfolds with a number of different and unusual stories, whose threads gradually come together in a very extraordinary way. I was pleased that the group all agreed on it's merits, and rated it very highly.

In addition to an unusual narrative structure, great characters, sense of place, sense of heat, this book also allows you to think about serious issues, without the issues being what the book is about. I couldn't ask for more from a teen read really.

Here's what one of my enthusiastic readers thinks:

Holes is an excellent story with everything you would expect and more happening with each turn of a page. Set part modern day and part in the past (sorry I can’t remember exactly when) the story is about a kid who finds an athlete’s trainers drop from the sky. From then on his life goes from bad to worse. He gets arrested and thrown into a camp were kids must dig holes in the ground to teach them discipline. At least that’s what the staff tell them. The kids have got to discover the secret before it’s too late and they have to go home.