Holes book club

Holes came out after my childhood.  This is a shame because I love Louis Sachar and as a kid, I read all of the Sideways Stories books, and in junior high, I had a blast figuring out the math problems of Sideways Arithmetic.  Louis Sachar’s Holes* came out the year I graduated college.  Holes was wildly popular, and a few years later the movie came out, and many elementary school reading teachers were happy because their reading lessons just became easier (every kid loves when there’s a movie for their required reading). I’m happy because I love our book and a movie book clubs, so it made this Holes book club a blast.

I watched Holes one day when the kids were little I decided to watch the movie, and loved it, for all of its absurdity.  I knew someday it’d be fun to watch with them.  I was right

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What is Holes by Louis Sachar about?

Stanley Yelnats has bad luck.  His grandfather insists it’s because of his great great grandfather the pig thief.  Either way, Stanley’s bad luck has landed him at Camp Greenlake digging holes for 18 months.  While at Camp Greenlake he makes “friends” with a unique set of fellow inmates.  Can Stanley break his family’s bad luck or will his luck only get worse?

Holes book club

Hi, Future Ticia 2022 here, I’m updating this post to share it again, and realized I don’t have any book club ideas in here. This was early in our book club days where we just had lots of informal discussions, so I’m going to send you over to Hide the Chocolate’s Holes Book Club. I’ve used both her Mary Poppins and 1984 book club. I highly recommend her book clubs.

Holes Movie Night snacks

Our snacks were a little unusual for our Holes* movie night.  I asked the kids what snacks we needed for watching Holes, they said, “God’s Thumb!  Armpit hair!  We need something to represent zero.”

So, I did my best to make their ideas come true.

We had Fudge Stripes* for “Zero.” Licorice whips cut up short for “Armpit hair.”

Creamy Jalapeno (bought from a local restaurant, but this recipe is similar) for rattlesnake venom (I should have done yellow lizard venom).  The chips represented rattlesnake fangs.  Gummy worms* represented the rattlesnakes.  That bowl was pretty empty by the end of the movie.

Oreos* opened up with pretzel sticks* were shovels, accompanied by a bowl of “dirt” for each kid to eat.  The dirt was chocolate pudding* (I used a mix, but these pudding cups would have been handy)  with the other half of the Oreos crumpled up on top of them.  They were wildly popular.

As those boys were digging they ran into limestone rocks from time to time, so of course, we had some limestone.  Represented by the healthy version with grilled chicken and less healthy version of marshmallows.

For our beverages, we had 2 liters of Coke, Dr Pepper, and Sprite as clean and dirty water.  The kids quite approved.  If anyone in my family liked peaches it would have made sense thematically to have peaches, but no one would have eaten them, and I was trying to think of a way to get onions in since that’s also a plot point, but I never thought of a good onion treat.

Any suggestions for a good onion snack we could have done for our Holes movie night?

Oh, maybe Funions? My kids don’t really like Funions, so that would be kind of pointless.

More 4th-grade book and a movie nights for you to try after your Holes Movie Night

• Mr. Popper’s Penguins book club
• James and the Giant Peach book club
• Because of Winn-Dixie book club
• Tale of Despereaux book club
• The Witches book club

“Millet field after harvest” by TREEAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0.