Holes

Holes is one of the first books I can remember everyone making a big deal about when it first came out. It was an instant classic, and though I was on the older end of the intended audience, I can remember getting caught up in the excitement around this new book, reading it, and loving it. I even say that movie when it came out a few years later, though I was definitely too old for it then and not quite old enough to circle back around to appreciating it.

I'm glad I took the time to revisit it now, though I'm finding myself questioning my motives for doing so. See, I spent about a decade carefully curating a library for a hypothetical daughter. I'd scoop up the classics whenever I found them, populating the shelves with the heroines of my youth and seeking out the ones I'd missed the first time around. Then I found out I was having a son, and I found myself shifting gears. Holes was the first book I bought with my actual son, rather than a hypothetical child in mind. As much as I feel like reading shouldn't be a gendered experience, and as much as I hope my son eventually falls in love with Alice and Laura and Ann and the rest, it's easier to become a reader when you can identify with the characters (which should lead to you learning to identify with characters that you don't have much in common with on the surface, which is how you build empathy).

Regardless of my complicated feelings about gender and reading, I'm really glad that my son prompted me to throw a wider net when it comes to children's classics. I'm sure I'd have gotten around to buying this book regardless, but re-reading it now was an absolute delight. It's a fantastic little mystery and coming of age story with everyone getting exactly what they deserve in the end. And if there's a distinct lack of female characters, well it does take place at a boy's juvenile detention center. It still has some excellent women in the side roles.