Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from.
Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories-but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar ( Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).ĭriven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. While the use of language honors the time period, the author is careful to avoid the phonetic quagmire that ensnares lesser writers of the period, allowing the colorful idioms to shine.Ī tale of the Jim Crow South that’s not sugar-coated but effective, with a trustworthy narrator who opens her heart and readers’ eyes. (Historical fiction. But Stella felt the tension in her mother's arms, and she knew that in reality, fear hugged them both.” Draper expertly creates a character filled with hope, dreams and ambition in a time when such traits were dangerous for a girl of color. In a telling passage, Stella’s mother attempts to comfort her: " 'It's gonna be all right,' her mother whispered as she smoothed down Stella's hair. Through the perspective of Stella, young readers glimpse the nearly suffocating anguish that envelops this black community, illuminating the feelings associated with suppression. During the Depression, North Carolina was less than hospitable for African-Americans forced to work more to earn less while being deprived of basic human rights. Stella Mills and her brother Jojo witness the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross late one starry night, setting off a chain reaction that leaves their entire community changed.
When a young girl gains confidence from her failures and strength from what her community dreads most, life delivers magic and hope.
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