My favorite thing about Holes is that there are at least three different main stories all woven together: Stanley, Zero, and Kissin' Kate Barlow. At the start of the story, they only seem related by geography; they all were a part of Green Lake. Later on, their histories are revealed as intertwining, and so their present intertwining seems even more meaningful - like destiny has brought them together. The magical fable of the curse's history and the grim present reality collide in this story. I love the fairy-tale feel of the story. Another thing I really liked were the images used consistently throughout, like common threads through the whole story. The peaches showed up everywhere, in Barlow's canned goods, on the lake, in the smell of the Sploosh. The same is true of the onions. Maybe this was to reinforce the sense of destiny in the story. The various pieces of the story were very intentionally linked with these images and with similar themes. However, other parts didn't seem so obviously related to the rest of the story, and I was puzzling over where the connection was, if there was one, between the pieces. One of these puzzling pieces was the racism in old-time Green Lake, in Kate and Sam's story. As in Toning the Sweep, the racism was not the main focus...it seemed to hang in the background. A discussion question I found online quoted Stanley talking about how the dirt made everyone at camp the same color, and it asked for a discussion of the significance of race in the novel. I definitely want to go back to the book and look through Stanley's story for any bits about race that I missed - I feel like I must have missed something huge, like I missed many of the messages woven into the overall story. I'd like to explore each piece alone, and see what the author seems to be saying about racism through them as a whole.
In teaching, I definitely want to explore the above question about the significance of race throughout the novel. I would love to hear what my classmates and hypothetical future students think. I know they all have seen things in the story that I've missed. Also, I found some projects/discussions for Holes that I really like, talking about destiny, friendship, the significance of nicknames, writing a letter from Elya Yelnats to Madame Zeroni, explaining why he didn't keep his promise to her, creating a recipe for frienship, and creating a print ad for Sploosh.
I agree! I like that all three of the stories were told through out the book. I also like how there were common threads through out the book. I think it added consistency and tied in each generation of the story together. I think it would be very interesting to see if students even pick up on the subject of race that is in the book.
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