Louis Sachar - Holes

Stanley Yelnats has, like his ancestors, found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether or not this is the result of his great great grandfather's legendary actions is besides the point, the fact is he has a choice to make. Prison or camp. Coming from a low-income family and subsequently never having had the chance to go to camp before, it's an easy choice.

Needless to say, Camp Green Lake isn't your regular summer camp. A juvenile correctional facility, Stanley is soon to find his time taken up with holes. one hole for each day. As you start to learn more about the Yelnats' history, the purpose of these holes also becomes clearer..

Holes weaves together two histories, one of modern day Stanley Yelnats, and the other from 100 years previous. Exactly how these two link up is cleverly and slowly weaved together until the histories resolve each other. The book is very clearly and unfussily written, making it very easy to read. The story is uncomplicated, with the monotony of Stanley's life being broken up through intrigue and the interspersing of the second story. A solid story with good characterisation, I would recommend this for upper KS2 children. The only thing I was a bit put-off by was the annex of the Survival Guide, which seemed a little unnecessary at the end of the book.

Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending

Tony Webster and his gang start out as sex-mad teens not quite experiencing what the swinging sixties was all about. Frustration and adoration, the former reserved for his not quite yielding girlfriend Veronica Ford, the latter for newcomer Adrian Finn. Absorbed into their friendship group, but keeping himself at arms length through his seriousness and nonconformity the rest of the group look up to his vast intelligence. Or this is how they remember it.

Barnes has Tony Webster hurtling through his actions and emotions in the first part of the book, dedicated to his early youth, love and friendships. Sure of his actions and injustices, it is only in the second part of the book that Tony begins to question his reliability as a witness to these events having now reached the later stages of his life. As he begins to question and unpick events from his youth, prompted by an unexpected lawyer's letter, Tony realises that maybe his own history is made up of the 'self-delusions of the defeated'. His own impact on time and events begins to get scrutinised and necessitates corroboration to prove whether the happenings in his otherwise average life happened as he imagined, or whether he was an untrustworthy witness to his own events.

The Sense of an Ending is an interesting investigation of the fallibility of memory and how we bear witness to our lives. A brilliant insight into a portion of someone's world and their changing reflections and accounts of their history it is nothing short of a great and thought-provoking read.