Holes by Louis Sachar

My middle schoolers love this book, which I think is a feat in itself because I would have guessed that they would have giggled so uncontrollably at a book called Holes that they never would have read it. But Louis Sachar is the kind of author who possesses a child's imagination or at least the ability to create characters and situation children will find appealing.

We read some of Sachar's Wayside School stories the other day, and I was impressed how well their absurdity stood up--like the story about how the teacher brings in Janie-flavored ice cream and everyone loves it but Janie, for whom it tastes like nothing because it's what she tastes all the time. That's just clever enough to make me smile while still being a simple enough twist that a sixth grader can understand it; it manages to be surreal but not random.

Holes, I found, has too few of the moments that make the Wayside stories so enjoyable and relies instead on a Santa's bag of quirks, gimmicks, and nonsensicalities that don't really cohere. It's a shaggy dog story about a kid named Stanley who is wrongly accused of stealing a basketball stars' shoes and is sent to a camp where he's made to dig holes, supposedly to build character but in fact so that he might discover a treasure buried in the area by notorious outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow. There are poisonous lizards, a kid named Zero, a gypsy curse, a deadly nail polish, and all manner of ridiculous details that might have worked well in the constraints of a short story. In a novel, however, they come off as the literary equivalent of flipping through the channels; though you might catch the conclusion of each show it doesn't mean you've really absorbed the material. Sachar jumps through innumerable hoops to tie the plot together at the end, but the focus that is one of juvenile fiction's strongest traits is sorely lacking.

Of course, you might say that I'm making the mistake of approaching this book as an adult--when, really, the proof of its success is in the fact that it can make a room of hormone-mad seventh graders quiet, if only for a few brief minutes.

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen

"This is how I'm guessing it started. They were hanging out at the house in the islands, Jimmy and his bride. She probably walked into his studio and caught just enough of the track to know it was better than anything she had in the can. She asked her husband to play it again and he probably said, “No, it's not ready.” Then she batted her eyes and stroked his neck and asked if he'd give her the song, and he said, “Sorry babe. This one's mine.” Time went by and Cleo's label was hounding her and she kept nagging Jimmy for the cut. She probably flirted and teased and begged and cried and threw a hissy, but he wouldn't budge. And when it became plain to Cleo that her husband was keeping 'Shipwrecked Heart' for himself, she decided to kill him. And what little she remembered of the song, she sang at his funeral. Touching."

I'm having a little trouble reading prestigious books so far this year. I picked up Basket Case at Goodwill for 69 cents mostly because it was in good shape and because I'd often heard Hiaasen compared to Dave Barry, one of my favorite humorists. I went into this book expecting something like a Terry Pratchett book with mystery instead of magic. Instead, I ended up with a halfway decent murder mystery that had no distinguishing characteristics.

There is, however, an easy way to determine if you'll find Basket Case more entertaining than I did. Ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do I find the band name “Jimmy and the Slut Puppies” even faintly amusing?

2. Does the idea of a man being bludgeoned nearly to death with a frozen lizard make me smile?

3. Is the ability to solve a mystery within the first two chapters a quality I look for in my whodunits?

If you answered “no” to all three of these questions, Basket Case might not be the book for you. I'd give a summary, but really, if you've ever read a mystery novel, you could probably outline it yourself, especially since most of it is contained in the excerpt at the top of this review. Overly formulaic and underly amusing, Basket Case will hopefully be the worst book I read this year.

Oh, and here's a list of things I'm officially tired of now: Random namedropping, especially of bands; incredibly unlikely romances between obviously incompatible and cardboard characters; witty banter that's not funny; ancient obituary writers who won't die; and that's all.