Common Sense Note
There's an edge to this humorous, moving, and sometimes violent story that children really respond to. Parents may want to talk to their children about the unfairness of Stanley's life, and the cold-hearted viciousness of some of the characters.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Sometimes there's a strange beauty in complexity, the bringing of order out of chaos. Sachar's story jumps around in time and place as he weaves his intricate tapestry of intersecting stories. An old Egyptian wise woman living in Latvia whose curse resounds down the generations, a schoolmarm in the American West, whose love for a black man destroys both their lives, a boy abandoned by his mother at a playground, a girl who is consumed with anger and greed as she watches the downfall of her family -- when all these disparate stories finally come ringing into their places, it's like hearing the perfect orchestral chord.
Sachar pulls together this complicated story with unusual characters, dark humor, inventive plotting (including some surprising twists), and some Dickensian coincidences. The harshness of the situation is mitigated by the multi-faceted mystery and by the strangely lighthearted way the author tells the story. At the end the author deliberately leaves a few holes in the plot for the reader to fill in. Sachar has a bizarre imagination, and in this vivid, many-layered book he puts it to its most compelling use yet.
From the book:
She stepped toward him and struck him across the face.
Mr. Sir stared at her. He had three long red marks slanting across the left side of his face. Stanley didn't know if the redness was caused by her nail polish or his blood.
It took a moment for the venom to sink in. Suddenly, Mr. Sir screamed and clutched his face with both hands. He let himself fall over, rolling off the hearth and onto the rug.
Plot Summary:
Stanley Yelnats, falsely convicted of stealing a celebrity's sneakers, is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile detention center in the middle of the desert, where the inmates are required to dig a large hole every day. Getting to know the other inmates and getting used to the grueling routine is only part of the story, though. There's a mystery behind this strange punishment that is related to a treasure and the supposed curse on Stanley's family dating back to his "dirty-rotten-pig-stealing" great grandfather. The keys to the mystery are scattered among a boy named Zero, a warden with rattlesnake venom nail polish, and a boat that is named after an onion-eating mule and sits in the middle of a dry lake bed.
Related Books:
Other Books by Louis Sachar
There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Stanley Yelnats's Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake
Sixth Grade Secrets
Other Books with Quirky Humor
The Adventures of Blue Avenger
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Sexual ContentA sheriff tries to force a schoolteacher to kiss him. |
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ViolenceSeveral characters hit with shovels, a fistfight, and several deaths, including murder. Several life-threatening scenes, especially one where Stanley and Zero and trapped in a hole for hours with poisonous lizards crawling all over them. |
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Social BehaviorRacism, both past and present, is mentioned. |
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