The Whole Hole Story

Imagination is the name of the game in this playful story about a girl named Zia who has a hole in her pocket. The hole gets bigger and bigger with the use of her visionary skills, until she falls right through! Zia’s thoughts are entertainingly employed to guide her journey—she isn’t afraid of falling through the giant hole because “this was only an imaginary hole, so it could only be as scary as she allowed.” As she explores what she can do with a hole, Zia turns the hole into a variety of different things, from a fishing hole to a drain at the bottom of a watering hole. There’s no shortage of adventure as Zia uses the hole to travel to India and later to create an ice skating rink. Eventually she climbs a tree and notices the hole looks a whole lot smaller from that height, “so small, in fact . . . Zia thought she could fit the whole thing in her pocket.” While devoting two pages to trapping Zia underneath the hole felt a bit lowbrow compared to the rest of the book’s ingenuity, McInerny skillfully packs her author debut full of wonder and creativity, circling back to the initial hole in Zia’s pocket for a polished conclusion. Lamug’s illustrations playfully portray the whimsical nature of the story with a fun use of color and detail that fit superbly with the story’s wonderful sense of possibility.