Review of 'Holes' by Louis Sachar - by Heena Pala, aged 13

Hello everyone - and a very belated Happy New Year (it's still January - just!)

As promised, I'll be featuring some more reviews of YA books this year by a young reader, Heena Pala, aged 13. Here is the first of the year - and it's of one of my all-time favourites. It's a great read for adults as well as younger readers: Holes, by Louis Sachar.

 
 “Holes” by Louis Sachar
Reviewed by Heena Pala
 
“Holes” is a book about a young boy of 11 who is accused of stealing a famous baseball player’s sneakers. Not being able to prove he hadn’t taken them, he has to be punished, he is given a choice of jail or a juvenile detention centre called Camp Green Lake. He chooses to go to the camp, where he has to dig a hole a day, five feet deep and five feet across to “build character” or so they say.

Stanley makes a loyal friend, unlike in school where he was continuously bullied for being overweight. One morning, when he finds his friend missing, he decides to go and look for him. After managing to escape from the camp, Stanley finds his friends, but they are both stranded in the desert for a week. Starving and surviving on onions and dirty water, the two boys give in and make their way back to camp, only to discover what the motive for digging holes is.
 
I like this book because it was so in depth that once I picked it up it was glued to my hands! This book at times has made me fill up with tears but burst out with laughter at the same time. It has also made me think about how lucky I am just to have loving friends and family around, which most of the boys in this book haven’t.
 
Please make time to read this book and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


Thank you, Heena, for another great review. Happy reading, everyone.

Best wishes
Ros

Book Details:
Title: Holes
Author: Louis Sachar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing plc
Publication Date: October 2000

Wonderful young readers and writers at King Henry VIII School, Coventry

I had the lovely experience last week of being a visiting author at King Henry VIII School, Coventry. My session was organised by Kirsty Kinmond, the enthusiastic librarian at the school. I was aksed to give an informal one-hour talk in the library, where I would say a bit about being a writer and answer questions from the students.

With students in the library at King Henry VIII school

One of the things I love about King Henry VIII is that the students are always so full of questions - and so ready to answer my questions to them. As the lunch hour progressed, more people came along and some had to leave to go to other things, but that was fine - it all added to the informal atmosphere. We had an interesting discussion abotu where fictional characters come from, and how it often feels as though you are not really making them up at all but listening in and watching to see what they will do next. We talked about favourite characters from books we'd read, and tried to work out what made a character really special. Many of us liked the idea of a hero/heroine who is not always very confident - someone who, like all of us, has doubts from time to time and maybe doesn't see him or herself as a hero at all (Frodo from Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings is a good example of that). And I was delighted to discover how many of my audience are writing books, stories, plays and film/animation scripts of their own.

But enough from me and over to Joe, who was one of the participants in the discussion. Joe has very kindly written the following piece about my visit, which I enjoyed reading very much. So thank you Joe, Kirsty and everyone else who made me so welcome at King Henry VIII School. I hope to see you all again soon.

Rosalie Warren visit

On the 7^th of November 2012 Rosalie Warren visited the library. She brought some of her books like Coping with Chloe and Charity's Child in the library. She asked some questions about some of our favourite characters out of books and films and we also got a chance to ask Rosalie Warren some of our own questions like how were you inspired to write and she said, 'I have always loved reading books and writing from a young age,' and that is apparently how she was inspired to write books.

We also all got a chance to give her some of our ideas for books and some of us explained characters that we had made up for our own books. We also had a pleasant biscuit while we were listening to Rosalie Warren's interesting points of views on certain books.

The visit from Rosalie Warren really put us in the shoes of a writer and how it amazed us to see how she got to where she is now.

A bit about Rosalie

'I always wanted to be a writer... even before I could write! I used to make up stories by drawing cartoon pictures of my characters and their adventures. The stories were mostly about big families, because I was a lonely little girl who didn't have brothers and sisters. Come to think of it, my stories are still mostly about families, because that’s where so much of our lives happens, both good and bad.

I have always loved reading and my all-time favourite books are the William books by Richmal Crompton.'

Proudly made by Joe Scott

My Review of 'The Bower Bird' by Ann Kelley...

... is posted on An Awfully Big Blog Review today

Ann Kelley's wonderful YA novel 'The Bower Bird' is a sequel to 'The Burying Beetle'.

It's a great story - part of the Gussie series - highly recommended for age 12+.

More Rosalie Reviews coming soon!

Happy reading,
Ros

Review of Ann Kelley's 'The Burying Beetle'

My review of Ann Kelley's wonderful YA novel 'The Burying Beetle' is on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure today

http://awfullybigreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-burying-beetle-by-ann-kelley.html

More Rosalie Reviews coming soon...

Best wishes,
Ros

Freebie Deebie Dee! - Charity's Child will be FREE to download on Mon April 23rd - Tues 24th!

I'm going to be away for a couple of days so I'm announcing a little ahead of time that my e-book Charity's Child - Dark Deed or Virgin Birth will be available to download FREE for Amazon Kindle for the 2-day period April 23rd - 24th 2012.

That's Monday and Tuesday, and it's to help celebrate World Book Night, which I mentioned in my previous post, here. If I've done my sums correctly, the freebie offer will start at 8am on Monday morning. If you're in the UK, you'll be able to download 'Charity' at the Amazon UK site here

And if you use Amazon.com, you can download it from the US site here

If you click on these sites now (Friday), you'll see the book priced at £1.94 or $2.99. Come back on Monday/Tuesday to pick up your copy of 'Charity's Child' for free. And in return, I'd be delighted if you felt like writing a review.

My giveaway is part of an Authors Electric event, where a group of 16 professional authors of e-books are offering books for free download for this 2-day period around World Book Night. You can read about Authors Electric here (details of the giveaway coming soon).

Scary stuff... I'm reviewing today on ABBA

I'm reviewing Susan Price's collection of ghost stories, Overheard in a Graveyard today on An Awfully Big Blog Review.



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