Author: Louis Sachar
Publishing information: (Yearling, May 9, 2000, Young Adult)
Number of Pages: 272 pages
Genre: Fantasy
The plot is very complex. Throughout the book there are three story lines. In the end they all come together.
The first story line is about Stanly Yelnats’s stay at Camp Green Lake. He was accused of stealing Clyde Livingston’s famous shoes. He ended up in court. He had two options, go to Camp Green Lake or go to jail. Along the way he got the nickname, Caveman. Everyone had a nickname there, such as Armpit, Zero, or X-ray. His daily job was to dig a hole out of the hard and dry Texas earth that is five feet in all directions. At some parts of his stay he even taught Zero, a black, to read and write.
The second plot deals with Stanly’s no good, dirty, rotten, great, great, grandfather. Stanly blames his misfortunes on him because he broke a promise, years ago. He had gone to see a gypsy to help him gain a girl’s hand in marriage. She told him that if he carried a pig up a mountain every day, and then carried her up the mountain and sang a song to her, he would gain the girl’s hand in marriage. When the time came he broke his promise, but he still got picked as the girl’s husband. That placed a curse on the entire Yelnats descendants. At camp Stanly met the gypsy’s descendent, (unknown to him) Hector Zeroni, and broke the curse by carrying him up the mountain and singing him a family song in escape from camp Green Lake.
The third plot deals with Kissing Kate Barlow and her life in Camp Green Lake a hundred and ten years ago. At that time ii was a beautiful, and thriving, lake town. She was in love with an onion seller, a black. Racism was big then, and the town didn’t like that they were in love. Trout walker, a wealthy man in town, wants to marry Kate, but she doesn’t want to marry him. He destroys her school house in revenge. She commonly kills her enemies with deadly lipstick with rattle snake poison in it. Stanly’s Great, great grandfather is one person, out of many, who she robbed while she am outlaw. She buried his money somewhere in Camp Green Lake. While the boys dig they are supposed to give anything to the warden which they find.
In the end Stanly and Hector escape and climb the same mountain that Stanly’s great, great grandfather failed to carry the gypsy up. As it ends up, Hector is the one who actually stole the shoes of the display, not Stanley. He admits it to Stanly. On their way, the find onions and sploosh; this later becomes a successful invention. The onions end up protecting them from the yellow spotted lizards, which were crawling on the trunk and bodies in the final hole. They dig one last hole and find a trunk of treasures; this gets to be kept by Stanly because his name is written on it. He and Hector were released from camp. They lived together and they became friends with Clyde Livingston. The curse was gone forever.
This is a well written book. It is very complex; I found it a catching book. I could read it for hours without putting it down. When I found out the symbolism of things: such as the onions, and the yellow spotted lizards, it made sense. The story lines were intriguing. I was eager to learn about the different parts of the story as they took their place in the plot. I am glad for how well the end of the story came together.
The people at camp green lake were cruel. The nicknames they gave each other were mean, like calling one boy named hector, “Zero”. The overseers worked these boys into the ground, literally. They were not treated how humans should be treated, even if they were there for a punishment.
This book is full of suspense and surprises. While seeming out of control in the beginning, it pulls together. It is really cool that this book is one of the few that broke the rules of writing good children's books, with having only a single plot, but it is very successful. This is a great example of a fantasy book.
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