Book Talk 7-Holes

    

          Holes starts out by describing Camp Green.  This camp used to be a lake side camp but is now dry and barren.  The camp is for young juveniles to go to serve out their sentence instead of going to jail.  The main character, Stanley Yelnats, and his family have extremely bad luck which they blame on the curse of his great great grandfather which has been carried through the generations.  Stanley was accused and convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and is sentenced but he gets to pick where he serves his time, so he chooses Camp Green thinking that camp would be more like summer camp but all the boys do in the camp is dig holes.  They dig big, deep holes and they don’t know why.  All they are told is that digging helps to build character, but there is another reason why.  I don’t want to give the story away but there a lot of layers in this story because the story lines of this book are all sort of connected in one way or another.  The mystery of how these story lines are connected is what makes this book fun and exciting because you want to find out what the big mystery is. 

          Holes was a great read and I think this would be a great book for a middle school aged child because this book has adventure and mystery so I think it will keep student’s interest.  And since the book itself is about adolescent boys they can really relate to some of the issues that these boys have.  This book doesn’t really have academic content and could be used for a fun read.  I do think this would be a fun book to show students how important your family’s history can really be.  The multiple story lines in this book are all related because of what happened in the past and therefore shows that the past does effect the future, but that you can change your future no matter what happened in your past.    

Book Talk #6-The Scarlet Letter

            The Scarlet Letter is about a young puritan girl, Hester, who was sent from England to the Americas by her husband to start their life in America while he finished up business in England.  However, the husband took longer than he thought and Hester had an affair with the town minister and gave birth to their child.  Hester is publicly humiliated for her adulterous act and took the punishment on her own by wearing a red letter A for Adulterer.   Hester was brought up by the God fearing, brimstone and fire beliefs, and knows the extent of her sins but Hester does not tell the town who she had the affair with and who the father of her daughter Pearl is.  Hester is essentially kicked out of town so she lives by herself and raises her daughter on her own.  Over the years Hester over comes other struggles as a young single mom, living in a time of such strict religious beliefs, and grows up a long with her daughter.   As more time goes by, she still does not disclose who the father of her child is and over time fewer and fewer people remember her sin and forget what the red A means. 

                I chose The Scarlet Letter because I liked reading the book when I was younger, but it has been a very long time since I read it.  The language can be challenging sometimes but I feel a middle school aged child could read it however, I think an 9^th or 10^th grader would enjoy this book more.  The challenging part about this book would be when the characters speak in old English, but as long as you could walk the student through what they are saying I think they would understand what’s going on.  The material of the book is a little racy because they talk about adultery, meaning sex, and sin.  So you would have to explain what adultery is and for those students who aren’t religious and you would have to talk about what a sin means.  Religion can be a touchy subject for parents and students but I think as long you kept it within the context of The Scarlet Letter you could avoid any issues.  Overall, I think this book would be perfect for an 9^th or 10^th grader because it talks about a younger girl who over comes societal issues essentially by herself.