Holes (Newbery Medal winner)

  Sachar, Louis. (1998). Holes. New York; Yearling.

  Holes is the 2009 winner of the Newbery Medal Award.

  Stanley Yelnats is under a family curse that started with his great-great-grandfather. 

  Stanley is sent to a boys detention center, Camp Green Lake, for a crime he didn’t commit.  Once there, Stanley and the others are forced to dig large holes.

  Stanley realizes the warden is having them dig holes because he is looking for something. What he doesn’t know is that more than one hundred years earlier, iat Camp Green Lake, a white woman and a black man fell in love. This is not accepted but when the couple tries to escape across the lake, their boat is destroyed and the man dies. The woman, Kate, becomes an outlaw and ends up robbing Stanley’s great-grandfather. She buries the money and dies before revealing its location.

     The warden knows this and is having the boys dig, looking for the money. Meanwhile, Stanley follows one of the boys up into the mountains. They return to camp and find a suitcase with Stanley’s name on it (which is also the name of his great-grandfather).

    Before the warden can take the suitcase away, Stanley is cleared of the crime he is accused of and is able to leave the detention camp. It seems the family curse is lifted, as the suitcase is full of valuable items AND Stanley’s father is finally successful at something. He finds a cure for foot odor!

     Holes uses understatement in many instances, including having the reader determine why the warden is having the boys dig.  It also uses realistic dialogue. In telling the story of the interracial couple, the sheriff says, “It ain’t against the law for you to kiss him… just for him to kiss you.”

 

The Higher Power of Lucky (Newbery Medal winner & Challenged book)

  Patron, Susan. (2006). The Higher Power of Lucky. (M. Phelan. Illus.). New York; Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

  The Higher Power of Lucky is the winner of the Newbery Medal for 2007.

   Lucky is a 10 year old girl who lives with her dog in a trailer in California. Lucky’s mother is dead and her father is gone. She lives with her guardian, Brigitte. Lucky is very smart and tends to overthink things.

   Lucky sees Brigitte’s suitcase and passport and fears that her guardian is about to return to France. She fears she will be abandoned in an orphanage, so Lucky runs away during a sandstorm.

   She carries her huge, heavy backpack with her. Outside of town, she finds her friend, Miles, who was injured in the storm.  They find shelter in dugout areas by an abandoned mine.

    Miles has a burr in his foot.  They have very little to eat. And a bug flies into Lucky’s ear and she cannot get it out. It seems like everything is going wrong in their shelter. Then, their other friend, Lincoln, finds them and lets them know the whole town is out looking (there are only 43 residents in the town). They have been rescued.

    Before she goes back to town, Lucky throws her mother’s ashes (she carries them with her) into the wind. Once back home, she learns that Brigitte was not returning to France and, instead, wants to adopt Lucky and be her mother.

     *Controversy arose over the use of the word “scrotum” on the first page of The Higher Power of Lucky.  A number of school librarians decided to ban or censor the book. However, the book did win the Newbery medal and has the support of the American Library Association.