Five of the best books with unlikely heroes

Brian Hastings is the creator of the video game Song of the Deep and the tie-in novel of the same title. One of his five books, for readers of most ages, with unlikely heroes, as shared at Tor.com:

Holes by Louis Sachar

I love Louis Sachar’s sense of humor. There’s a beautiful absurdity to the situations and characters he creates that both satirizes and celebrates the comic absurdity of the world around us. Holes is about Stanley Yelnats, a boy whose family is cursed with generations of bad luck, who is forced to dig holes in the scorched, dry ground known as Camp Green Lake after being wrongly accused of stealing a pair of shoes. The book interweaves three different time-periods, each with its own fascinating and bizarre set of characters, and ties them together in a perfect holistic tapestry. Each character from each time period and each seemingly random event all tie together to form a beautifully absurd and absolutely perfect ending. Every seemingly insignificant element of the story—from the deadly yellow spotted lizards to the no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather to the steadily-building subplot about onions and peaches—ends up being a vital part of the narrative.

Read about another entry on the list.

Holes is among Jen Harper's ten top kids' books from the ’90s that have proven to be utterly timeless, Ross Montgomery's top ten books for young danger lovers, Phil Earle's top ten zeros-to-heros in stories for children and young adults, Leah Hyslop's six best beverages in books, and Sarah Moore Fitzgerald's top ten books featuring grandparents.

Also see SF Said's top ten unlikely heroes.

--Marshal Zeringue