From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 09:53:54 -0600

Thanks, Eliza Dresang, for sharing a 14-year-old's responses of her reading of Whirligig - and for sharing yours, too. Agree? Disagree? Why?

Eliza briefly referred to the book Holes. Recently I read Holes by Louis Sachar (A Frances Foster Book / Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998). I was struck by its nonlinear characteristics, because that's on my mind at this point. I was also stunned by its originality. Holes is beautifully crafted: bursting with tension, wry humor, mystery, surprises, gross inhumanity - and deep humanity. Sachar's development of Stanley Yelnets and his family's generations of "bad luck" are the stuff of a terrific novel, and Stanley himself seems to be a real kid. Holes contains dark elements, but they're balanced within the entire novel (cited in the jacket blurb as a "tale of crime and punishment - and redemption." Hmm, is this a season of novels of redemption?!)

Sachar displays the off?at humor and full-scale narrative puzzle I so enjoyed in Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game. Talk about nonlinear! Take a look at Raskin's novels! ... Ginny Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC phone: 608/263720) A Library of the School of Education (www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/) University of Wisconsin - Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St. Madison, WI 53706 USA Public Service Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 9:00a.m.-7:00p.m. & Fri.-Sat. 9:00a.m.-4:00p.m.
Received on Tue 27 Oct 1998 09:53:54 AM CST