Holes is one of those very special books for me. It was a book that I read as a child and later went on to teach as an adult. And the fondness I now have for it is pretty immense.
So I’ll not hide my bias when I say there are no books like Holes. Not exactly.
Louis Sachar interlocked a family curse, a desert detention camp and a hundred years of history so neatly that nothing else clicks shut quite the same way.
So the trick to finding something similar starts with knowing which bit your child loved (the mystery clicking together, the deadpan humour, the outsider hero, the survival grit) and matching that.
Below are the matches that I’d hand to a fellow fan of this book.
For lots of 9 to 11s, Holes might be the first book they’ve encountered with some real darkness in it. And they enjoyed it.
So, that’s the kind of vibe we’re chasing.
Everything below sits with it on our books for 9 year olds shelf, and it leads our long car journey list for a reason (it’s the great all-rounder).
More Sachar first
The easiest answer to “something like Holes?” is to go to the man who wrote Holes, and the library now stocks two of his best.
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom by Louis Sachar
There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom
For the kid whose favourite part of Holes was Stanley.
Bradley Chalkers is the oldest kid in the class, and the loneliest. He tells enormous lies, he picks fights, and nobody (teachers included) wants to sit near him.
Then a new school counsellor arrives and does the one thing nobody else has tried. She actually likes him.
If your child loved Stanley (the boy everyone underestimated), this is that with the desert swapped for a classroom. Funny and painful in the same breath. Age 9.
Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar
Fuzzy Mud
Tamaya and Marshall take a shortcut home through the woods to escape a bully, and find something that shouldn’t exist.
There’s a patch of strange, fuzzy mud that seems almost alive. Then a rash starts spreading through the school.
It follows that same shape as Holes, where a small decision snowballs into consequences far bigger than anyone saw coming. Age 9.
If it was the mystery clicking together
One of the reasons I loved teaching Holes was when I got to share the brilliant and immensely satisfying moment when all the pieces come together. Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather’s curse, the holes at Camp Green Lake, and the trainers to name a couple of the brilliant clues encountered along the way.
Here’s a couple of cracking mysteries that will certainly hit that same spot.
The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson
The Goldfish Boy
The best pure mystery match here.
Matthew is trapped in his bedroom by crippling OCD, watching the neighbours of Chestnut Close go about their lives from his window.
Then he becomes the last person to see the toddler next door before the boy goes missing, and the watcher has to turn detective.
An outsider hero and a mystery where every small detail matters. Age 8 to 10.
If it was the deadpan humour
Holes is funny in a pretty dark way (especially for a kids’ book).
There is no lake at Camp Green Lake, the warden is dressed and appears nothing like a warden, and the narrator reports all of it like a weather forecast.
If that’s what your child enjoyed, you want a writer who trusts the reader to spot the joke.
Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Framed
Dylan is the only boy in the tiny Welsh town of Manod. His family run the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel garage and he keeps the petrol log.
(Which means he knows everyone coming in and out of town, right down to their favourite crisps.)
Then a mysterious convoy of lorries trundles up the misty mountain to an old, disused mine, and even Dylan can’t work out who these people are or what they’re hiding.
Nobody does dry, blink-and-you-miss-it comedy over a slowly unfolding scheme like Cottrell Boyce. Age 9.
If it was the survival grit
The survival and determination of the boys who dig one five-foot hole a day, every day, in the desert heat is very compelling to kids. It raises a lot of “how long do you think you’d last?” and “would you be able to do it?” questions.
As a result, some readers really crave stories where the hardship is taken seriously, with a child who endures it. These are the books for that.
The Explorer by Katherine Rundell
The Explorer
Fred, Con, Lila and Max are flying home from Manaus when their plane crashes into the Amazon and the pilot doesn’t survive.
For days they keep themselves alive alone, until Fred finds a map that leads to a ruined city, and a secret someone worked hard to keep.
It’s got the kids-sticking-together bits (and the turning-on-each-other bits) but in a jungle.
Age 9 to 11.
Two more along the same lines, both already starring in other lists of ours: The Wild Robot does survival with a warmer heart at 8 (robot Roz, alone on a wild island, learning from the animals), and Kick brings the moral stakes at 10 (Budi, stitching football boots in Jakarta, one unlucky kick from disaster). For an adventure with an injustice to overturn, Brightstorm sends twins to clear their explorer father’s name.
Books like Holes for readers ready to step up
Wolf Road by Alice Roberts
Wolf Road
For the 11 year old who wants the survival with real jeopardy.
Tuuli is a prehistoric girl travelling with her tribe through the seasons.
She’s making camp, hunting, surviving whatever the climate throws at them.
She knows there’s a bigger world out there, and when she spots a strange boy lurking outside the camp, he might hold the adventure she’s been looking for.
This feels like real survival, and it’s a proper step up. Age 11.
The other classic step-up is Kensuke’s Kingdom.
Michael is washed up on a Pacific island the night before his twelfth birthday.
He wakes to find a plate of fish and fresh water beside him, and realises he is not alone.
We’ve already got it on our car-journey list, so if your child has already read it, Wolf Road is the fresh territory.
Just so you know…
Holes and every book above is in Little Reads, a library of 3,000+ hand-picked books for children aged 5 to 11.
A free account gives you 100+ free books, and full access is £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
We’re a library, not a classroom. No phonics, no reading levels, no ads.
And if yours has just closed Holes and gone quiet, one of the books above should fill the hole.