My favorite characters were, of course, as the author no doubt intended, Sam and Kate Barlow. They were such essentially good people it was impossible not to like them. As for the other characters, I think Stanley is fleshed out quite well, his thoughts, his difficulties, his fears. We sort of see him grow up and mature in his time at the camp. Zero is quite the same, only he’s unveiled to us, step by step, a bit slower,but in the end it’s also impossible not to like him. The one I really couldn’t understand for some reason was Zigzag, the one who once hit Stanley in the head with the shovel. Um, why was that? A very well built character was, for me, the Warden, Ms. Walker. The descendant of Trout and Linda Walker. Utterly obsessed, like her parents and their parents before them, by the ghost of the buried treasure.

“Just so long as I have the suitcase, I don’t care what happens. Do you know how long … ” Her voice trailed off, then started up again. “When I was little I’d watch my parents dig holes, every weekend and holiday. When I got bigger, I had to dig, too. Even on Christmas.”

It’s sort of interesting how the book treats the notion of luck. Stanley and his father and grandfather have always been blaming their “no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing” ancestor for bringing a curse on the family’s head. Every time something bad happened, it was poor man’s fault. From that point of view I liked it when Stanley crashed the car into a hole and then thought how this time he couldn’t even blame his great-great-grandfather but only himself. So… when does our own influence on things end and where does luck (or lack of it) begin?

Speaking of the family curse I have found the way it was lifted absolutely brilliant.
******SPOILER*******
So, the family was cursed because the young Elya Yelnats failed to keep a promise he made to a woman named Zeroni, to carry her on a mountain, give her to drink from the spring there and sing to her a particular song. Interestingly enough the song has turned into a sort of lullaby for the Yelnats descendants over the years, each of them singing it to his children and so on. Fast forward to current time. Stanley and his friend Zero are walking through a hot dry area trying to reach the top of a mountain where they hope water might be found. Zero is sick and cannot stand so it’s up to Stanley to carry him to the top. Which he does, hurrying to find a small muddy spring, helping his dehydrated friend drink then keeping him company and singing him the lullaby to set his mind at ease. Without Stanley even thinking about it, the curse is thus lifted: Zero was the descendant of the old Zeroni woman, and Stanley had carried him on the mountain, gave him water and sung to him. Debt accomplished.
Now, the best part about it is that I, the reader, did think, in the very first moment I heard Zero’s full name that through him the curse will be lifted — only at the time of the two actually climbing the mountain I was too busy rooting for them and their survival to even think of something as trivial as the curse :P
****END SPOILER*****

Our hero is named Stanley Yelnats IV (his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been called Stanley too), because his parents (as his father’s parents, his grandfather’s parents and his great-grandfather’s parents before them) thought it would be a really cool name to have his first name same as the last name spelled backwards (Yelnats being originally presented as a Lithuanian name, the name of the ancestor who first came to America).

What I liked most: I loved the fact that, after the boys have managed to get off alive after having yellow-spotted lizards swarming on them for a few hours, the author does not chalk the matter off to their just being lucky — he goes on and explains to us (via a little flashback) how the lizards never bite anyone smelling like onion (and as the boys have lived off onions for the past week everything sort of falls into place :P)

What I liked least: I was heartbroken when reading about the old Mary Lou the donkey. The story of Sam and Kate was very very sad too but I’m always touched more when an animal is also involved. So, why did Sam had to have a donkey, why??

Recommend it? Absolutely. Short and quite fun (and a bit sad too).

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