HOLES

Digging a hole five feet deep and five feet across is a formidable task. Digging innumerable holes under the Texas summer sun in a dry lake bed infested with rattlesnakes, scorpions and poisonous yellow-spotted lizards is meant to challenge one's instinct for survival. When Stanley Yelnats, wrongfully convicted of theft, is sentenced to time at Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility, his focus is endurance, but his lessons extend to family history and the great wheel of justice. Kerry Beyer's smooth narration draws the reader into Stanley's unfortunate experience without theatrics. As a result of Beyer's unvarnished delivery, the listener believes in Stanley's unlikely existence, and Sachar's improbable cast of secondary characters is individualized in entertaining fashion. An admirable reading of the 1999 Newbery Award novel. T.B. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 99]